With the huge ad company acquisitions happening over the past couple of weeks it seems some talk has gone back to who is going to acquire Facebook. If you have read any of the articles by Mark Zuckerberg or the VCs they don’t seem to plan on cashing out through acquisition. Instead there are continued talks of bigger things for Facebook and I believe they plan on following the Amazon and eBay plan of becoming a platform.
There comes a time where the price is simply too much for any company and with the system Facebook has in place and the people backing it (Peter Thiel of Paypal fame) I can see them opening up the system to 3rd parties to leverage the people system that is in place. In theory this seems like a cool idea, but unlike eBay or Amazon there really is no revenue stream for Facebook beyond advertising. Of course I could be thinking short-sighted here and they have a clearer vision.
Because of this you can fully expect them to go the IPO route as they will be forced to do after acquiring 500 shareholders (SEC regulations). I could imagine that a lot of companies would love access to the 1,000s of regional networks that Facebook has in place along with the trusted contacts that people have setup. That’s just my quick theory on what they have in store and why they walk away from $1B offers.
With that said there is only so much money a man needs in his life and once you hit that 9 0s mark I think it’s time to take a bow and peace. Hope it works out for them.
Originally posted on May 21, 2007 @ 11:29 pm