Facebook not for sale
After gaining a lot of press over the rumoured $2Billion purchase price, Facebook announces that not only was it never really for sale, it has just raised $25Million in VC funding. Although this may confirm the company is no longer for sale, one must now question the source of the initial sale rumour. Was it merely a tactic to gain some publicity beforeÂ? looking or during negotiationsÂ? for funding? We may never know. But a better question to ask might be why invest in another Social Networking website?
MySpace has proved that there is room in the market, but how much room? I’ve stated on more than one occassion that these sites have to be able to find their own unique way to fit into the Internet, or users will continue to simply come and go. For what it’s worth, Facebook seemed to be able to capitalize on the college market, but this is in no way a unique niche market, and there is the potential for huge overlap and fallout in that market. What happens when these individuals graduate? Won’t they simply leave this behind with their university t-shirts, cold pizza breakfasts and keg parties?
Although I respect what they’ve done, YouTubeÂ? and MySpace, which have their own angles to work, are out-pacing the growth of Facebook. I’d be more interested in a company like CyworldÂ? that at least has a new angle on this well-worked idea. Not to say that Facebook should close up shop. They do have 3 interesting angles to work for revenue - local advertisers, national advertisers, and sponsored content. As long as they can maintain enough of a userbase (for ever graduate there are probably 2 freshman), there’s still success to be had.