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Facebook Tried To Buy Asian Snapchat Clone Snow (techcrunch.com)

Posted by msmash on from the can't-beat-em',-buy-'em dept.

Jon Russell, reporting for TechCrunch:Here's fuel to the fire for those who believe that Facebook will buy anything that looks, smells or moves like Snapchat. The U.S. social networking giant this summer made an unsuccessful bid to acquire Snow, a Snapchat-like service from Naver, the $25 billion-valued Korean firm behind chat app Line, a source close to the company told TechCrunch. Snow currently has around 80 million downloads, and it is adding around 10 million more each month, according to the source. That growth has also encouraged acquisition interest from Tencent -- the maker of blockbuster chat app WeChat -- Alibaba and others, TechCrunch understands. "It's true that Snow is receiving love calls from various companies," a representative from Naver told us in a statement. Despite acknowledging outside interest, Naver did not name Snow's would-be suitors.

10 comments

  1. Facebook Tried To Buy Asian Snapchat Clone Snow by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Am I the only one who read: "Facebook Tried To Buy Asian Snaphat Clown Show" ?? The scary thing is that that's actually sounds like something they would do.

  2. Uh huh by 110010001000 · · Score: 1

    Sure it did. These social app companies are hitting hard times as the space gets consolidated by the major players.

    1. Re:Uh huh by houstonbofh · · Score: 1

      If having lots of companies throw money at you is hard times, bring em on! I think I need to make a snapchat close and sell it to FaceBook for millions...

    2. Re:Uh huh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Naver is a corporate. Very big in South Korea. They do have their own search engine and its usage surpasses Google yet. And their Line messenger is used around most of Asian countries (probably except Korea and China. South Koreans mostly use KakaoTalk by the way) hitting hard time? pppttts

  3. Nice editing by chexican · · Score: 0

    from the can't-beat-em',- but -'em dept.

  4. daddy me zuck me bought snow me down the lane by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    daddy me zucker me bucker me bought snow me down the lane?

  5. Is it possible to force inter operability? by bogaboga · · Score: 0

    Who will save us from the scourge of non inter operable chat clients? Just imagine if email were like that!!! In this sector, Big countries like China can help out. What else can the USA do?

  6. Not John Snow I hope by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I have it on good authority (well she had red hair) that he knows nothing.