Microsoft May Invest in Facebook for $500M
Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder and CEO of MySpace alternative Facebook, must have nerves of steel. While MySpace founders Tom Anderson and Chris DeWolfe were quick to sell the rights to their site to Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation for $580 million last year, Zuckerberg has repeatedly stated his intentions to stay in control. He has stuck to his guns despite offers rumored to have exceeded $2 billion from Yahoo! and Google. But now, Microsoft has come a-knocking with a $500 million offer to purchase just five percent of the company. Microsoft's $500-million offer for five percent would put the entire value of Facebook at around $10 billion. That's a lot of cash for a company that, as of July, had around 300 employees and has gotten this far with $41 million in venture funding.
As of July, Facebook had 34 million active members, a small percentage of MySpace's 200 million total accounts. However, with MySpace frequenters seemingly being overrun by spammers, Facebook has gained ground lately. If these buy rumors are true, Microsoft certainly thinks Facebook will surpass MySpace as the social network of choice.
What would Microsoft do with this sort of site? We can only imagine tighter integration with Vista, perhaps things like a photo application that lets you upload pictures straight from Windows to your Facebook account. We could also see direct integration with Xbox Live Friends Lists so everyone can see what games friends are playing. Or, perhaps the Redmond giant just wants to get in on the modern face of protesting and drive its competition out of business through loss of employee productivity.
From AOL Money & Finance
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