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America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

nytimes.com

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Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#131

Post by gee_totes »

I'm going to speculate that this is a very strategic move from Facebook. Remember BlackBerry Messenger? one of the early selling points of the phone was that BBM let you communicate for free, instantly, with people all over the world. It was pretty revolutionary at it's time.

Facebook is already becoming the world's phonebook. Connect with someone and you have a way to contact them.

Facebook is also heavily pushing it's messaging app on the main Facebook app. I think that WhatsApp will be integrated with (or replace) Facebook messenger.

This combination builds a powerful base for an eventual Facebook phone with a free data/voice plan (the phone would have a base price, but service would be free thanks to the sale of ads ala Kindle Special Offers). Think about it -- if you could call, text, and message all of your contacts, for free, from within the Facebook app, why wouldn't you do it?

If Facebook follows that strategy, they will get their 19 billion out of this deal for sure.

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#132

Post by jmreid »

PakG1 wrote: post #111
batpad wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

17876045

Screw all you guys and your good memories, why can't I remember mine? :P

I can't believe I can remember mine as well (10407923). I don't even remember my old phone number that I had at the time, or the address of where I lived!

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#133

Post by alexeisadeski3 »

gee_totes wrote: post #131

I'm going to speculate that this is a very strategic move from Facebook. Remember BlackBerry Messenger? one of the early selling points of the phone was that BBM let you communicate for free, instantly, with people all over the world. It was pretty revolutionary at it's time. Facebook is already becoming the world's phonebook. Connect with someone and you have a way to contact them. Facebook is also heavily pushing i…

>BBM let you communicate for free, instantly, with people all over the world. It was pretty revolutionary at it's time.

It was not.

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#134

Post by jeffdubin »

shuw wrote: post #85
efuquen wrote: post #69

Someone mentioned about trying to find out if their have ever been any other chat services that have really made a lot of money on it's own, and it sparked memory of an acquisition that didn't happen quite that long ago, Microsoft buying Skype in 2011, and here is a good recent article about it: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/skype-micr... The bullet point that stands out for me is this: • Problems…

Skype has 663 million "accounts", very few of these were active. According to http://www.statisticbrain.com/skype-statistics/ , only 31 million Skype users are active as of 2012.

Only?

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#135

Post by im3w1l »

twelvechairs wrote: post #120
efuquen wrote: post #69

Someone mentioned about trying to find out if their have ever been any other chat services that have really made a lot of money on it's own, and it sparked memory of an acquisition that didn't happen quite that long ago, Microsoft buying Skype in 2011, and here is a good recent article about it: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/skype-micr... The bullet point that stands out for me is this: • Problems…

Speculation - pure and simple. its an easy sell at the moment to executives and financial types who don't understand how computers work. The reality is that all these services (just like icq) are simple to replace and will only become moreso. if you try to make more than a trickle of income users will turn away. it won't pan out long term for many of these big purchases.

I wonder if IAP could work for social... "You used all your daily premium smileys. Click here to buy more!"

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#137

Post by cmarschner »

gee_totes wrote: post #131

I'm going to speculate that this is a very strategic move from Facebook. Remember BlackBerry Messenger? one of the early selling points of the phone was that BBM let you communicate for free, instantly, with people all over the world. It was pretty revolutionary at it's time. Facebook is already becoming the world's phonebook. Connect with someone and you have a way to contact them. Facebook is also heavily pushing i…

They will have a phone

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#138

Post by lovemenot »

im3w1l wrote: post #135
twelvechairs wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speculation - pure and simple. its an easy sell at the moment to executives and financial types who don't understand how computers work. The reality is that all these services (just like icq) are simple to replace and will only become moreso. if you try to make more than a trickle of income users will turn away. it won't pan out long term for many of these big purchases.

I wonder if IAP could work for social... "You used all your daily premium smileys. Click here to buy more!"

Check out the business model of Line, the WhatsApp competitor dominant in Japan. It's almost exactly what you said. http://www.oneskyapp.com/blog/secret-monetizing-messaging-ap...

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#139

Post by coldtea »

shuw wrote: post #85
efuquen wrote: post #69

Someone mentioned about trying to find out if their have ever been any other chat services that have really made a lot of money on it's own, and it sparked memory of an acquisition that didn't happen quite that long ago, Microsoft buying Skype in 2011, and here is a good recent article about it: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/aug/30/skype-micr... The bullet point that stands out for me is this: • Problems…

Skype has 663 million "accounts", very few of these were active. According to http://www.statisticbrain.com/skype-statistics/ , only 31 million Skype users are active as of 2012.

The statistics sounds BS (as a lot of them are).

FWIW, I don't know anyone (across 5 countries of friends and business partners) who doesn't use Skype.

Re: America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

#140

Post by coldtea »

corresation wrote: post #79
higherpurpose wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whatsapp makes extremely little revenue right now - like it would take Facebook hundreds of years to recuperate what they paid [1]. Even if it doubles in user-base and grows by an order of magnitude (on top of that) through some magic Facebook monetization strategy, it would still take them decades. But if we discount the fact that Facebook mostly paid their own "worthless" (mostly overhyped/overvalued) stock for thi…

"What would be much smarter is using your own engineers to build that next disruption" Could they, though? Facebook's DNA is information accumulation. As is Google's. WhatsApp is the antithesis of this, and the likely outcome of this acquisition is the gradual decline of the product as people flock to whatever new, unburdened, anonymous replacement comes along. But for a while it will boost the stock price because it…

>Could they, though? Facebook's DNA is information accumulation. As is Google's.

I don't think companies have DNAs. Just idiotic managers who don't give enough freedom to teams to work outside the company's box.

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