Microsoft and Facebook, sitting in a tree? Or is that Google?

First of all I’d like to commend Robert Guth at the WSJ for managing to use the word “familiar” 11 times in a 749 word article. That word made up a full 1.4% of the piece. But I’m being glib.

What surprises me most about this news is not that Microsoft is trying to get their paws on a chunk of Facebook (that’s been more or less “common knowledge” for some time), but that Facebook, according to “those familiar with the matter” is entertaining the idea.

From what I can tell, it looks like Facebook is (doing an excellent job of) playing familiar rivals Google and Microsoft off of each other for a better investment. I’m somewhat surprised at the size of the numbers being thrown around though - $10bn dollar valuation now, Facebook rumored to be holding out for $15bn. I think it was about a year ago that the rumors of $2bn floated around.

To me that indicates some massive revenue growth somewhere. (What is the rule of thumb, 15x annual determines your value?)

And I do mean “investment,” not ownership - Zuckerberg is undoubtedly familiar with the price tag he could attach to Facebook as a whole, but seems more interested in keeping control of the company, which frankly, I like. I think Facebook will do much better in the hands of Zuckerberg and the original team than it is likely to do in someone else’s hands.

An investment from either MS or Google is I think unlikely to effect any real change in the Facebook policies towards app developers - I’ve said before that Zuckerberg is familiar with the value that developers are adding to his platform, and in keeping with that I believe that as long as he’s in command, there will be a fair amount of leeway on monetizing your work inside of it.

Maybe Facebook is expected to hybridize that revenue at some point, like Revver of Google does.

The news is all about the Microsoft talks at the moment, but I think that Google makes just about as much sense as an investor for Zuckerberg. It will be interesting to see whose money, if anyone’s, Zuckerberg takes.

Familiar count: 6/375 - 1.6%! I win

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