Excepting the patent and panic-driven Motorola deal, prior to yesterday’s acquisition of Nest for $3.2 billion, the previous largest deal Google’s history was DoubleClick for $3.1 billion 2006. Beyond the similar dollar figures, it’s a deal worth considering for what it says about Google then and now. With the acquisition of DoubleClick, Google solidified its […]
Instagram Direct, Twitter DMs, and the Social/Communications Map
Instagram today announced Instagram Direct. From the Instagram blog:1 From a photo of your daily coffee to a sunrise shared from the top of a mountain hike, every Instagram moment contains something you find special—something you broadcast to your followers when you tap “share.” There are, however, moments in our lives that we want to […]
The Social/Communications Map
I took another turn at my map of the social networking space I made for yesterday’s post The Multitudes of Social: I made a few changes: The primary change is relabeling the horizontal axis. Originally I had “Interest/Topic- Based” on the left, and “Real-life Relationship-Based” on the right, but as Victor Pope pointed out on […]
The Multitudes of Social
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.) – Walt Whitman, Song of Myself Last week Snapchat reportedly turned down a $3 billion dollar all-cash offer from Facebook. Apparently Facebook was worried about losing the teen demographic, or perhaps they were unnerved by the 350 million photos […]
Facebook Acquires Onavo
Earlier this week Facebook acquired the mobile data analytics company Onavo. The original spin was that this was a great fit with Internet.org, given that Onavo’s apps are focused on monitoring data usage and maximizing the amount of data you get per kilobyte. Onavo said as much in their blog post announcing the acquisition: As […]
Mobile Makes Facebook Just an App; That’s Great News
“Strong opinions weakly held” is a core principle of mine, and while I think I’ve demonstrated strong opinions aplenty on this blog, today it’s time to give credence to the “weakly held” part. Specifically, I have been wrong about Facebook. I’ve been a bear about their long-term prospects, and now I am a bull. My […]
Waze Winners and Losers
Google acquired Waze earlier this week for a reported $1.03 billion. This is an interesting deal for a few different reasons with a clear set of winners and losers. Big Winner: Waze This is an incredible exit for a company with only ~17 million active users and negligible revenues. Waze is a great product – […]
Yahoo, Tumblr, and the Signal-to-ads Cycle
Tumblr is worth far more to Yahoo than $1.1 billion, and worth far less as a standalone company. That makes this acquisition a win-win; Yahoo is buying three important parts of the signal-to-ads cycle, and Tumblr’s investors are getting a nice exit. There are three ways to improve advertising revenue: Sell more ads Sell more […]
Apps, People, and Jobs to Be Done
I read two great interviews tonight, and its the combination of the two that really captures why I’m skeptical about Facebook Home.1 First off was Mark Suster interviewing Clayton Christensen. The interview – as is the case with most things Christensen related – is fascinating and instructive, and well worth a read. However, I want […]
Facebook’s Mobile Failure: A Compare/Contrast With LINE
Facebook is in the news for an imminent Android-related announcement; speculation is heavy that this is fabled Facebook phone. Techcrunch: Facebook just invited press to an event at its headquarters on April 4th to “Come See Our New Home On Android”. Sources tell us it will be a modified version of the Android operating system […]