Facebook Acquires FriendFeed
Filed under: Facebook, Investments, Social Networking | Tags: acquisition, FriendFeed |
The top story on the social Web this week is Facebook’s acquisition of social media aggregator FriendFeed. The transaction is reported around $50 million. FriendFeed’s traffic is an estimated 1 million visitors per month which is minute compared to Facebook’s 250 million. With a recent Facebook valuation of $10 billion though, the numbers make sense.
Forrester Research analyst Jeremiah Owyang says it was “a good move for Facebook,” but it may have been a little premature for FriendFeed. “They could have given it a couple more years. With some marketing, they could have developed into a viable social media competitor,” says Owyang.
Others seem to have a difference of opinion. PC World reporter David Coursey states, “Purchasing FriendFeed, which seemed to be going nowhere, seems like an enlightened act of charity. The four … former Google stars that founded the company get a graceful exit from FriendFeed and an excuse when the service eventually shuts down.”
In my opinion this was a win-win situation for FriendFeed and Facebook; a lucrative deal for FriendFeed’s former Google engineer founders; and Facebook scoops up a so-far proven service that contains valuable insight into social media features that Facebook has yet to explore on it’s own platform.
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