The internet looks set to make another young American entrepreneur into a multi-millionaire with speculation that search engine and portal company Yahoo! is in talks to buy social networking site Facebook.com for close to $1bn (£526m).
Any move on the company, which like MySpace and UK equivalent Bebo allows internet users to create their own space on the web and communicate with each other, is likely to infuriate Microsoft. Last month the software group signed an online advertising deal with Facebook, guaranteeing the site a minimum of $200m over three years and aping a similar deal between MySpace and Google.
Facebook was set up two-and-a-half years ago by Mark Zuckerberg while he was studying psychology and computer science at Harvard. Designed to function as an online version of a high school yearbook, with contact details and photos of students, the idea took off and the following year he dropped out of college.
Facebook has expanded from its roots on American college campuses, allowing pupils at schools to register and letting selected companies into the network. The seventh most visited site in the US, Facebook now has users in more than 40,000 colleges, schools and work places and is looking to throw open its doors to anyone with a valid email address.
Mr Zuckerberg, 22, still owns about 30% of the business so any deal with Yahoo! will place him among America’s mega-rich. Neither Yahoo! nor Facebook would comment last night on reports of a deal.
I wonder what Microsoft’s comment on the deal will be? I don’t mean the “official” nice guy comment for the Press.
Facebook is going downhill fast and they’d be smart to sell while still possible. Every day more and more people join facebook and once they opened the doors to non-college students I was mad.
If I wanted to socialize with college dropouts and loosers working at McDonalds I’ll use myspace. If I want to stalk that hottie in my Material Sciences class I’ll use facebook
and is looking to throw open its doors to anyone with a valid email address.
“the Kiss of Death” comes to mind.
Closely followed by “Killing the Goose which lays the Golden Eggs”.
Its funny you don’t want to associate with college dropouts, but you will use a product designed by one to “stalk hotties”
Thank god for people like you in this world…
I got some swamp SPINACH, can I be the next millionaire?
I use the word “stalk” very loosely, as most students at Penn State refered to facebook as “stalkernet”
But I digress, back to my main point. People used this as a way to keep in touch with people from their classes, see how they know someone else e.g. 3 degrees to my last girlfriend .and so forth.
This is the kiss of death when they open this to everyone. Hello fake accounts, hello more spam , hello annoyances and little kids.
Good bye facebook —
The New Yorker had a long and fascinating piece about Facebook a few months ago. It’s not online apparently (which shows you that the New Yorker still doesn’t quite get this whole “internet” thing). 🙂
#6 – Or that the New Yorker is “above” the Internet (or maybe think they are?) I don’t know… I like the New Yorker…
But 1 billion?
I mean that just seems like too much money… and where did Yahoo get a billion clams?