Facebook isn’t phased by Big Checks
12.15.06 - 09:47pm
Apparently Yahoo has set it’s sights on Facebook but they may be courting a brick wall. According to Facebook board member Peter Thiel, Facebook will remain an independent company unlike many other companies that have sold out to larger corporations, namely YouTube and MySpace. From the look of things, Yahoo was willing to pay $1 billion to acquire Facebook and Facebook flat out turned them down. To be honest I believe that to stay independent Facebook will retain what makes it Facebook, it’s ability to act on it’s own and not have the commercial interests of a larger organization telling it how to monetize the site.
Over time I have slowly seen Facebook add various features and forms of advertising and I have enjoyed the slow, guarded nature that Facebook has taken over it’s development. A crucial step for Facebook was opening up the service to anyone and everyone, while I felt that it let everyone else into College’s unique club, it greatly increased the number of Facebook users and made it even more possible for them to sell some bigtime advertisements. With approximately 12 million current users, Facebook has an enormous captive audience. I know for a fact that everytime I walk through the Georgia Tech library I will see roughly 20% of the computers with Facebook pulled up on atleast one of the screens. Well maybe not 20% but enough that I have come to recognize the website from 30-40 feet away. The marketing potential for personalized advertising is immense with Facebook as your hobbies, activities, and relationships are all available making it possible for Facebook to target very particular groups of people with targeted advertising.
With it’s userbase growing, advertising technology improving, and Yahoo continuing to court Facebook things are looking very good for the founding board members. I would hope that Facebook will keep it’s stance of independence and it’s current slim advertising campaign as I would hate to see it turned into another ad spam site. Stay single Facebook, I would hate to see your relationship status change.
Relevant Links
Bloomberg.com: Facebook, Courted By Yahoo, Won’t Sell, Director Says (Update3)
Facebook.com
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