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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.
Sounds like its time to find a new social media website.
Carl Sagan quotes get you an automatic +5 on all posts.
Apple tends to buy things that will make them money. I really doubt Facebook would ever make any money for Apple. (Or anyone for that matter.)
If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
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.
Let Microsoft buy Adobe, then let Apple buy Facebook. That way, they're all in one place when we nuke them from orbit.
Funny may not give karma, but +5 Informative never made anyone snort coffee out their nose.
Usually Apple buys small, "cheap" and useful companies and Facebook doesn't belong to any of these categories.
100 billion dollars [raise pinkie to lip]
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.
Buy Dell and close it down. Just to make Michael Dell eat his words.
Once upon a time, there was this amazing company called Netscape. It was so fantastic that this other company called AOL bought it for over $4 billion.
Later on, there was this amazing company called AOL. It was so fantastic that this other company called Time Warner believed it was valued it at something like a quarter trillion dollars, so merged with it.
Later on, there was this amazing company called Facebook...
Sharks included?
Strategic partnership, sure, but outright purchase? No way. Sure, it's temping to consider the ways Facebook could interface with iOS, but Facebook is valued somewhere in the neighborhood of $30-35B, and Apple only has $50B cash on hand. Facebook is too expensive for what it is -- a neatly designed hack for people to make their own web pages and connect with others. The value of the company lies in the number of active accounts, not the technology itself. And for Apple, a technology company which already has an accomplished marketing department and more publicity than it can ever use, the purchase just doesn't have enough value.
Besides, Facebook has already displaced Google in the areas the two compete in. There would be nothing to add to that particular rat race, but the danger that Google could focus on a single enemy instead of several. Yhe only reason to buy a company is to harness the potential innovation and future success when integrated with your own. Buying a fully-fledge corporation relying on something as fickle as consumer taste is a terrible idea.
It's ingenious! How could it not work?
Just like when AOL bought Llamasoft. No, you know what would be a better example? When Fox bought MySpace. That worked out well, right?
This is moronic. This is "I need column inches, and Apple has money and gets pageviews, and Facebook gets page views, so I'll write a column..." nonsense.
What would Apple get out of this? A big messy architecture (in maintaining all those servers, integrating OS X with FB)? A giant target on it's back for even more privacy lawsuits? I don't see any value to Apple in buying Facebook. It would make a ton more sense to just buy up some good ISVs or more hardware companies to help design their products in house.
Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
I think Steve wont be interested unless they come pre-installed with the laser beams.
You are entitled to your own opinions, not your own facts.
The new, improved! Fapple!
Yah, I'd want a different social media website too. And a shower. Yech.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
They could take half of that cash and buy Yahoo, Adobe, and Novell. Why mess with Facebook?
Both my wife and myself have deleted our facebook accounts. Last time I was in that situation it was with Myspace. Remember Myspace?
The Canadian Industry Association? What about them?
Facebook staff have been amazed to discover that when Facebook passes users' complete details to application developers and advertisers, some of the partner companies might accidentally let slip the information in some manner.
"We are appalled at this information leak," said Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg as he took a break from his personal RSS feed of drunk women's tits posted to his service. "But I can assure you that we have sternly suggested to everyone involved that they take somewhat greater care not to get caught, and maintain a serious demeanor when rolling around in the great big pit filled with money in their basement."
"I'm horrified and outraged," said office worker Brenda Busybody, 43 (IQ), "that stuff I put on the Internet is on the Internet. It violates everything I expect. I want privacy when I'm calling my boss a useless fuckstick to the entire world, all my coworkers and my boss himself. And when I'm playing a bit of FarmVille before we nick off down the pub."
Privacy advocates are working on Diaspora, a security-enhanced social network so far populated by Linux users who cryptographically sign every update about which episode of Babylon 5 they just finished watching alone in their parents' basement. "START PGP KEY BLOCK!" said open source software advocate Hiram Nerdboy, 17. "WE WILL PROTECT YOUR FREEDOMS!" The next version of Diaspora will allow users to list more than three friends, should there be any demand whatsoever for such a feature.
Facebook works on the now-standard "Web 2.0" business model: 1. Brutally sodomise the personal privacy of anyone who comes within a mile of your service and say "hey baby, I'm sorry" every time you're busted. 2. Sell ads.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
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.
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."
Yes, I do realize that and, eight years ago, when I first tried iTunes, I did just that. My media collection was still borked and I had to clean i up manually. Then I tried getting iTunes to play anything other than it's own proprietary format and, back then, it wouldn't.
See, dude, this is just a lie, which makes me think the rest of your post might be as well. iTunes has always played plain old MP3s, AIFFs, and WAVs, since it was introduced, and with plugins it will play OGG formats since at least 2003 (I have iTunes OGGs imported from then). There is NO SUCH THING as an iTunes proprietary format, certainly not in 2002. To top it off, there wasn't even a Windows version of iTunes until 2004, and it had WMA to AAC conversion. So I'm sorry, but I call bullshit on your story.