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The Case For Apple Buying Facebook
The article makes the case that Jobs has been hinting that he wants to actually spend some of the $51 billion Apple has been sitting on, and that Facebook is a likely candidate. Considering how thin the Ping social network is, and the integration issues the two companies have had, there are some good reasons for such a deal. And a heck of a lot of reasons why not.
Since all of /. knows how tight Apple is with its apps, perhaps an Apple acquisition of facebook would force the latter to get rid of all the stupid apps present therein...
One could hope.
They could use it to promote their other stuff. For example, suppose all mobile devices that weren't iPhones had somewhat flaky Facebook integration, but iPhones "just worked" with Facebook. Even better, suppose they set up some odd licensing conditions, making it hard for competitors people to mention Facebook in their mobile adverts.
Knowing their abilities with marketing, they could easily convince people that it was the only good way to use Facebook on the go, especially since it would tie in nicely with their existing "you are a cool person with a large social circle" branding.
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
I don't think Jobs is dumb enough to buy Facebook.
Right now it's the darling of the social internet, but a few years ago that title belonged to MySpace. Remember MySpace?
These sites don't have a very long shelf life. They're popular for a few years, and then they die off when the next, newest popular social media site takes off.
Does it make you happy you're so strange?
So there are a million reasons this would be a terrible idea, but there is one potential benefit: Facebook could finally receive the badly needed usability revamp that it has needed for years now. If there's one company that knows how to make interfaces, it's Apple, and the confusing mess that is Facebook is long long overdue for a major reworking.
I read the internet for the articles.
the Facebook for iPhone app is pretty crappy right now. You can't do much with it.
.com is much better.
There's a little incongruency though, in that because the iPhone has a real web browser, it's a lot better to just go to the full website (full functionality).
the Facebook for iPhone app is good for browsing quickly while on the go, but if you want to actually do anything beyond look at a status, a bookmark to the
Yep, that's really giving back to the shareholders....
Once the stock tanks, they won't be happy about Steve spending their money so easily.
Adobe makes some sense, but not really overall, too much on the PC and no niche for mass consumer sales.
Yahoo doesn't make sense, unless Apple starts viewing itself like Google, and it shouldn't do that.
Novell is the most interesting, if only so they can compete with Microsoft's AD. But again, that ultimately doesn't make sense.
Apple's success of late has been in the consumer device market. Along those lines, buying Nintendo makes much much more sense. The Wii is a good Apple like product, simple device that is popular with all but the hardcore Xbox boys. Xbox and PS3 are owned by large corps and likely not on the market (assuming Nitendo is). Nintendo would make an awesome media server for a house. Hell with Netflix Channel now running it freakin feels like an iPhone.
The only other thing I would think Apple would be aiming for would be content delivery channels (Cable/SatTV), or content that is delivered (Netflix).
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
Problem with that is: Farmville (like a lot of games on FB) is a flash game, and Flash would have to go if FB would become an Apple asset. And, while I know that "there's an app for that" (TM), it doesn't seem likely that Steve could convince Zynga to go all HTML5 just for the fun of it. Well, not against the Google millions already poured inside Zynga, that is...
A World in a Grain of Sand / Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Infinity in the Palm of your Hand / And Eternity in an Hour.
Is Facebook even looking for a buyer? It hasnt even gone IPO yet because they want keep control of their vision. If that is the case, it doesnt make sense to sell it to Apple whatever they are offering. I think Apple buying Facebook would be a mistake for the users and would ruin the Facebook experience. I like that they are a privately held company and not IPO, and you got to be impresssed by a kid that figured out the entepreneurial game before 20. I think all these complaints about Facebook's privacy are greatly exaggerated. I mean to begin with, you don't have to post anything at all, and you can restrict your page to your friends. Also the complaints about the targeted ads are over the top. Aren't most users today already great at ignoring ads anyways? I can't remember a single ad on Facebook ever because I never even look at them even though I use the site daily. I think most of the "privacy" concerns are either from people overly concerned about their already non-existent privacy, or news and media agencies worried that Facebook style sites will eclipse their current media & news offering, or people, especially politicians, creating scare stories to frighten other people into thinking there is a problem that must be solved. Don't get me wrong, I strongly believe in developers understanding and implementing proper IT security in general, but seriously how many people have lost "private" information on Facebook that was not already public information on the Internet or in phone books. Perhaps a public "Don't be Stupid on the Internet" campaign is in order these days, but I don't think it is neccessary to attack Facebook with exaggerated accusations. The main reason that is happening is everyone is jealous of its success.
This sort of idle speculation belongs in idle, don't you think?
"There are some good reasons for Apple to buy Facebook. And lots of reasons not to. They probably won't, but, hey, you're reading this, aren't you?"
Your brain is not a computer.
Why is this modded as Funny? The gist of it is really the reason Apple would consider such a buy: To make it iPhone-only or at least a hell of a lot more iPhone-friendly then on Android.
Seriously, mobile is the now and the future, most especially for social media. And the Android experiance is already leaps and bounds ahead of iPhone (even if sales data doesn't yet reflect it). If Apple doesn't find a huge stake to put into the heart of Android soon, there won't be Apple left.
Mac - Windows 7 really and cheap hardware really does make buying a Mac a vanity option at best.
iPod - Dedicated media players are dead, thanks to smart phones.
iTouch/iPhone - Dead: Android blows them away already and the gap is getting larger every moment.
iPad - Alive for now, but see above about Android blowing iOS away... A combination of Android being a better system and 7" tablets being a better form factor will equal the death of iPads.
Apple TV - DOA, way too little way too late.
Apple stock will continue to rise for a bit, but they're going to have to pull something ACTUALLY magical out of Steve Job's ass very soon or they will quickly be marginalized.
Apple's biggest acquisition ever was buying NeXT for around $400M. Since then, the companies they've bought have been strategic additions that complemented existing lines of business. Acquiring a company is far more expensive than just the cash you fork over. There's the cost of integrating operations, the amount of time and attention required from the senior management, and of course the opportunity cost, because there are plenty of other things you could be doing with that money.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."