Facebook looking to buy Plaxo? Unlikely
Published by Blake Robinson January 15th, 2008 in Facebook, Facebook Marketing, Facebook News, Facebook Trends, facebook Business.
Venture Beat’s Eric Eldon has run a piece in which “a source” claims that Facebook is “one hundred percent buying Plaxo.” For the hasty, the affirmation of Eldon’s unnamed source would seem to give credence to Valleywag’s recent mongering of the same rumor.
While Plaxo is definitely on the market, Facebook almost certainly isn’t the buyer. There are quite a few reasons and rationales spiraling about, but I think Arrington says it best over on TechCrunch:
The company has just 1.8 million worldwide visitors per month (Comscore), less than 2% of Facebookâs 100 million monthly visitors. At current growth rates Facebook is adding around 10 million unique visitors per month. Putting this deal into perspective: Facebook grows a Plaxo every six days or so. And Comscore says 25% of Plaxo visitors are already coming to Facebook anyway.
In other words, Facebook’s rate of expansion plus its standing overlap of Plaxo subscribers equals a product that is of negligible value to the Facebook. And coupling that with Plaxo’s estimated $200 million asking price and you open yourself up to a whole slew of other questions with no logical answers.
It is unlikely that this rumor will ever grow any real legs.
I tried Plaxo out way back when and given the privacy concerns I had with them initially, while a Facebook acquisition may not be impending, I think the two would make a cute couple.
Does this data mining make me look fat?
Comparing traffic is not a valid way to assess whether a company wants to buy another company. Facebook may want to just buy the technology, and the talent that Plaxo offers.
$200 million for technology and talent? I think Facebook already has the technology aspect covered. With the buzz surrounding social networking and Facebooks place at the top, I doubt they have any trouble attracting top talent.
This deal is not worth doing for Facebook.
Actually the two have very different markets. Plaxo is more like a outlook ap on the web, and facebook, is well facebook. Does it make sense, being an investor in Plaxo I would love for this to happen. But unless facebook is seriously going after business users I am not sure it makes sense.
I understand your privacy issues, it was something that I had trouble getting passed as well. But once I did the ap has proven to be immensely useful for my business life. It’s not really a social networking site in the same sense as facebook or others like that. But there is real value for users none the less.
Enjoy.