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posted by
LaminatorX
on Saturday February 22 2014, @12:00AM
from the It's-like-a-telegram-but-on-a-phone dept.
from the It's-like-a-telegram-but-on-a-phone dept.
siliconwafer writes:
"Facebook's purchase of WhatsApp has generated a lot of noise in the financial and tech industries, with some calling the purchase price 'down-right silly' and 'jaw-dropping', and others have said the price is fair, but question the strategy. Is the purchase price evidence that we're entering entering another tech bubble reminiscent of the 1990s? Some say no, while others believe that a bubble may exist only in social media, given that the Global X Social Media Index ETF has outperformed the NASDAQ over the past year."
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Have we entered another tech bubble?
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I'm not a robot like you. I don't like having disks crammed into me... unless they're Oreos, and then only in the mouth.
-- Fry
(Score: 5, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday February 22 2014, @12:53AM
Speculation that I have seen in some financial sites is that Facebook participation is falling in real terms (page visits) as well as percentage of potential market. This is because even the teens have finally realized its pretty stupid to share everything and friend everybody, and are starting to avoid facebook, closing their accounts, or not signing up at all.
They've moved on, to other services, more for messaging, chatting, and in a more private way than living their life on a bulletin board. Facebook is now haunted by grand mothers and 30somethings who haven't yet figured out that the the cool kids are all leaving.
Facebook realized this via their analytic, and started buying those places to which the customer has moved. They can't buy the fastest growing alternatives, twitter, Google Plus, etc, so they pick up the picture sites and the messaging sites. You can run, but you can't hide.
Discussion should abhor vacuity, as space does a vacuum.
(Score: 3, Funny) by TheloniousToady on Saturday February 22 2014, @01:20AM
This suggestion that grannies are always chasing the next cool thing (even if you didn't actually intend it that way) reminds me of the old Monty Python bit where a gang of grannies terrorizes a neighborhood with their handbags. And if those grannies invade WhatsApp, then Suckerberg *certainly* paid too much for it.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Aighearach on Saturday February 22 2014, @01:33AM
Grandmas and 30-somethings aren't on facebook because they think there are cool kids there. They are there hanging out with their friends from HS/college/20s.
They may not be cool, but they are a good advertising demographic. And they're not going away, even if usage goes down over time.
(Score: 5, Informative) by hemocyanin on Saturday February 22 2014, @05:24AM
Maybe, maybe not. Remember MySpace? Interesting graphs: https://blog.compete.com/2012/02/16/myspaces-one-m illion-users-is-more-really-better/ [compete.com]
Or for that matter, how about GeoCities -- the only traffic they get now is on Way Back Machine. Yahoo paid 3.7 Billion 1999 dollars (5.04B 2012 Dollars) on GeoCities: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/05 /20/185573937/yahoos-other-billion-dollar-bets-whe re-are-they-now [npr.org]
Finally, DO NOT miss this link from that NPR article: http://www.wonder-tonic.com/geocitiesizer/ [wonder-tonic.com]
"Make Any Webpage Look Like It Was Made By A 13 Year-Old In 1996"
(Score: 5, Funny) by Koen on Saturday February 22 2014, @01:54PM
I could not resist (I briefly tried), I submitted Slashdot.org to the geocitiesizer... looks better than Beta.
/. refugees on Usenet: comp.misc [comp.misc]
(Score: 1) by acid andy on Saturday February 22 2014, @02:19PM
I assume you know they shut GeoCities down?
I abandoned Geocities long before that when the files I had on there became corrupted. I was seriously unimpressed.
(Score: 2, Informative) by randmcnatt on Saturday February 22 2014, @05:06PM
The Wright brothers were not the first to fly: they were the first to land.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Sunday February 23 2014, @04:15AM
Of course -- the "way back machine" bit -- that was a joke predicated on understanding geocities is dead.
(Score: 1) by acid andy on Sunday February 23 2014, @06:20PM
Ahh sorry bit of a whoosh moment. I wasn't sure.
(Score: 1) by Aighearach on Monday February 24 2014, @05:10PM
Myspace was doing good work in that area, but they lost out because facebook had games, better messaging, better lots of things, that attracted a bunch of their friends who hadn't even heard about myspace until they were already on facebook. Those two sites fought it out in the early phase of that. Now, "everybody" who wants to stay in touch with their past is using facebook for that. Until facebook does something to drive them away, it is very hard to get whole social circles to move. People might like a new website, and use facebook less, but facebook will still be the only place they can go to connect with their legacy friends.
A site would first have to be interesting to a large percent of facebook users, and have them signed up, before they can even attempt competition. Google+ can't be that, because so many of the people who like it are already using it for work. People don't want to mix their work and play messaging.
Maybe in 15 years the teens of today will be using something other than facebook to keep in touch with their HS friends. That will be a Good Thing(TM). But todays 30-somethings on facebook would most likely be 40-somethings on facebook by then.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by TheRaven on Saturday February 22 2014, @06:56AM
The most plausible reason for the purchase that I've seen advanced is that Facebook bought WhatsApp with the intent of keeping it exactly as-is. A messaging application is not really a competitor for a social network, but it has a large customer base and the potential to grow into something that is. By freezing WhatsApp features at exactly their current level, Facebook can prevent this. It's not a good long-term strategy, because they'll need to keep buying potential competitors.
If this is the case, then anyone wanting to make some quick money should set up something like WhatsApp, create some buzz, get a million or so users, announce a load of new social media functionality that will appear in the next version, and sell to Facebook for an inflated price...
sudo mod me up
(Score: 2, Insightful) by edIII on Saturday February 22 2014, @04:05PM
It's definitely FB trying to stay relevant in the marketplace.
All of the immensely stupid young people that ditched their privacy for the mass mutual masturbatory practices at FB have had some *hard* lessons in the last 5 years.
Story after story about people getting fired, refused promotions, forced to hand over passwords to human resources, vigilante justice (really screwing up, pissing people off, and having it go viral), super-critical-cringe events where fedoras spontaneously catch on fire, etc.
In other words, they are figuring out that the Internet has a really complicated and impressive memory in which nothing ever truly dies. You can't remove your tits from the Internet, and you can't un-say that stupid racist remark that got you fired from work.
The trend now for what I can see is services that still allow those greatly enjoyable mass mutual masturbatory sessions, but in a way that is far less organized providing a sense of greater privacy (the irony).
Social networking will enjoy a new growth period when it embraces privacy as the fundamental principle that guides it. Not Big Data and Big Marketing.
The kids are figuring out. Which is surprising in of itself. It's a push back from the cliffs of Idiocracy, which is a good thing.