Rumors are running rampant that Yahoo is considering acquiring MySpace. This isn’t just some random rumor either – The New York Times is reporting that News Corp. and Yahoo have discussed the idea. It’s a pretty “loose proposal” as the New York Times says, but the idea has been thrown out there.
The cost? Well, rumor has it that Yahoo would give up 25% of their stock which would mean that MySpace is worth $12 billion. Keep in mind, News Corp. originally paid $580 million for MySpace, so they’d be receiving a nice return on their investment. This is definitely a smart move for News Corp., but is it a smart move for Yahoo?
Now the next question is why would Fox be so eager to get Yahoo stock? Giving up 25% of their company sounds like a lot right now for Yahoo, especially after they just lost their CEO, however, their main competitor is Google. Given that, perhaps Yahoo feels as though they’d be able to stand up to Google’s competition with MySpace on board? This move could potentially turn out to be very profitable for Yahoo if they are able to control the advertising and search on MySpace.
We all know Yahoo has wanted to get into the Social Network scene. Afterall, they offered Facebook $1.6 billion in December which was quickly turned down. With the recent spike in Facebook’s popularity, it might make more sense for Yahoo to run after Facebook with a more generous offer and see what the result is.
Speaking of Facebook, has anybody else noticed that more people are un-installing the new applications rather than installing them? So many of the applications are cool for about a day, and then they serve no real purpose. Hopefully it’s not true, but I think Facebook apps may be losing some appeal. They have for me anyways.
I installed like 10 Facebook apps to try out on the first day and removed like 8 of them at the end of the day. Some of them are advertised to be better, more fun and more useful than they actually are.
I think the apps make facebook more like myspace. Although some of them are cool (I think SuperPoke is interesting), they clutter up the profile and just make everything cluttered (similar to myspace).
I don’t care how many people are on MySpace, I want standardization. If you want to customize, use Virb.com
actually i had to deactivate my facebook for that