it's not the crime, it's the coverage

[rone]

So Om Malik wrote this thing about what impelled Facebook to buy Instagram.  First off, i can't get past Malik's assertion of "Facebook's achilles heel"[sic] being "mobile photo sharing".  Seriously?  Mobile photo sharing is a hard-driving revenue stream for anyone in this world?  Is there any evidence that this was considered a weakness by anyone at Facebook?  I can lean on my experience and tell you that sharing photos from my Android phone is stone easy to Facebook, because my phone came with the Facebook app installed.  I couldn't've done it on Instagram at all until very recently.  Facebook was worried about Instagram's mobile photo sharing mojo?  I call bullshit.

And calling Instagram "a platform built on emotion"... what the hell is that about?  I wonder if he's an advance Facebook stock share owner, because it sure as hell sounds like he's trying to talk himself into the deal, which is no less than ludicrous.  Who drops $1B, even if most of it is fake money, on an emotion-based platform?  Emotion fades.

Some are comparing it to Google buying YouTube, but others are comparing it to eBay buying Skype.  I think that it's far more likely to be closer to the latter, except worse.  Bottom line: even if, somehow, this turns out to be a good deal for Facebook, it won't be because of them addressing their supposed "Achilles heel", or because of the strength of Instagram's "emotion".

Bonus cluebie: some "business leader" thinks that Twitter "F$($#@ UP in somehow letting Instagram ended up inside of Facebook"[sic], because nothing says "mobile business advisor" than someone playing with ginned-up valuation numbers.

Comments

[rwx.livejournal.com]

upside: they're all probably working at facebook for three years and bound by legal contracts written thrice in blood.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Bound by money, perhaps.

[thorfinn]

The figure quoted is 1 billion dollars, but the proportion of stock vs cash is completely undisclosed anywhere. So it's a big case of who knows, but I'd bet on some big long term stock options in the new employment contracts, especially as there's an big shiny IPO coming up.