SnapChat Turns Down $3 Billion Offer From Facebook

Dr Herbert West writes about a reported $3 billion offer from Facebook that Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel turned down. "Snapchat, a rapidly growing messaging service, recently spurned an all-cash acquisition offer from Facebook for close to $3 billion or more, according to people briefed on the matter. The offer, and rebuff, came as Snapchat is being wooed by other investors and potential acquirers. Chinese e-commerce giant Tencent Holdings had offered to lead an investment that would value two-year-old Snapchat at $4 billion. Evan Spiegel, Snapchat’s 23-year-old co-founder and CEO, will not likely consider an acquisition or an investment at least until early next year, the people briefed on the matter said. They said Spiegel is hoping Snapchat’s numbers – of users and messages – will grow enough by then to justify an even larger valuation, the people said."

Comments

Re:My children are using it

[Jason Levine]

One obvious workaround that I can think of: Screen capture. On my phone (Droid Bionic), pressing the Volume Down + Power button for a few seconds takes a photo of the screen no matter what app I'm in. Most other phones have a similar capability (though the actual method for this may vary). So if someone sent me a SnapChat photo, I could save a screenshot of it on my phone. While the original would "expire" and be unavailable, my screenshot version would remain for me to keep looking at or send to other people.