Search
Chat

Powered by Squarespace
Archives
Navigation
Submit

Follow

Community

« links for 2007-05-26 | Main | Facebook is Windows, MySpace is DOS »

Two more thoughts on Facebook: On Accel, Amazon, and Microsoft

1)  What Accel did by investing in Facebook was the equivalent of spending $100 on a old painting at a yardsale that later appraised on Antique Roadshow for $5000.    That was BEFORE the creation of this developer network.  The way they've built this thing is like coming home and discovering that, hidden in the frame of your old painting is one of ten known original copies of the Declaration of Independence.

What I'm saying is that, a few years ago, Accel invested a lot of money in a very hot social networking property.  However, there's no way in hell, and no way that anyone could really convince me, that they foresaw Facebook's eventual prominence in the social application ecosphere as the OS.   I'm sure they just saw pageviews and signups and all sorts of nice charts with hockey sticks on them and wanted to be a part of that.  Now, maybe this is what Mark Zuckerberg had in his head... that's a possibility... I don't know the guy, but I seriously doubt he pitched the social OS concept to them before anyone really even gave any thought to what that meant.

2)  If Microsoft wanted to spent that $6 billion of agency M&A money more wisely, they would have bought their way into the web OS by buying Facebook for half that.   Google, Adobe... someone who wants to be in that layer should seriously consider throwing $3-5 billion their way.

Actually, to be honest, I think the acquirer that makes the most sense is Amazon.  Amazon store+S3+Facebook would mean that you have a place to host your app, spread your app, ways to sell stuff in a whitelabeled way through your app, and a social network to integrate into a "Your friends bought this" concept.  Imagine how powerful it would be if when I buy stuff, all my friends get notified.

Jeff Bezos... are you listening?  Buy Facebook!

Reader Comments (4)

I don't know. If I were a Facebook shareholder, I'm not sure I would accept $5 billion. Could easily be worth much more very quickly.
May 25, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterJosh Jaffe
This is interesting analysis - this topic has received a lot of blog head-nods (and for good reason). Regarding Josh's comment, that could well be true but it will depend on how this is executed. Note that the top app is way more popular than any other app, and many seem to be rather cliche and not well-received.

Jason AlbaCEO - JibberJobber.com
May 27, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterJason Alba
I think Accel put money into FB since Peter Thiel as angel and did not want Sequoia in. Amazon could miss the chance.
May 27, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterJason
This tool will provide an estimation of the future
May 30, 2007 | Unregistered CommenterEmre

PostPost a New Comment

Enter your information below to add a new comment.
Author Email (optional):
Author URL (optional):
Post:
 
Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>