Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google Buys Slide for $182 Million, Getting More Serious about Social Games

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 65 posts

Re: Google Buys Slide for $182 Million, Getting More Serious about Social Games

#51

Post by aspiringsensei »

jgilliam wrote: post #41
betterlabs wrote: post #19

Max is awesome and I love his attitude. But I just never ever understood Slide. And why Google would buy Slide is equally difficult to understand, if not more. Are they buying technology? Or users (on Facebook!)? Or revenues (most likely not!)? Or Max and his team?

It's the same reason they partnered with Zynga. It's a backdoor way to get at large chunks of Facebook profile data for ad targeting.

I hadn't considered this angle: are you able to flesh out the degree to which they will be able to do this?

I'm non-technical, so it's not immediately clear to me:

* the potential increase in cashflow yields from improving ad targeting (what change will it make? isn't google pretty good at this already?) * How the data from Zynga & Slide will flow out of the facebook ecosystem and into the broader web (is your slide identity linked to your google search identity somehow?)

I'd appreciate any thoughts that occur to you. Still puzzling over the point of a back-door into facebook user data and what that might bring. Could they export that into a google profile? Would an understanding of what individuals "like" and "dislike" in concert with knowledge of their social graph's likes and dislikes lead to more targeted advertising?

I guess those are the questions that google bought the company to answer: 182m is not that much in terms of earnings for them, and they might have been able to pay in stock.

Thanks for getting my mind whirring.

Re: Google Buys Slide for $182 Million, Getting More Serious about Social Games

#53

Post by rgrieselhuber »

jonknee wrote: post #50
ed wrote: post #3

$182 Million may sound like a lot, but remember that not too long ago this company was raising capital at a valuation of $2 billion . I expect there will be little cash, if any, left for employees after investor payouts.

If they bought in at $2B valuation wouldn't that just mean they lost money and there would still be whatever percent of the shares / $182m that weren't sold to the investor's left?

Depends on liquidity preferences.

Re: Google Buys Slide for $182 Million, Getting More Serious about Social Games

#54

Post by kmilden »

nivertech wrote: post #27
betterlabs wrote: post #19

Max is awesome and I love his attitude. But I just never ever understood Slide. And why Google would buy Slide is equally difficult to understand, if not more. Are they buying technology? Or users (on Facebook!)? Or revenues (most likely not!)? Or Max and his team?

Why Google buying Slide? Probably some VC, who invested in Slide, also sit on Google's board. That's why ;)

I agree. This type of thing happens all too often.

Re: Google Buys Slide for $182 Million, Getting More Serious about Social Games

#55

Post by betterlabs »

nivertech wrote: post #27
betterlabs wrote: post #19

Max is awesome and I love his attitude. But I just never ever understood Slide. And why Google would buy Slide is equally difficult to understand, if not more. Are they buying technology? Or users (on Facebook!)? Or revenues (most likely not!)? Or Max and his team?

Why Google buying Slide? Probably some VC, who invested in Slide, also sit on Google's board. That's why ;)

+1 to that. I think that is the best explanation. Sometimes the best way to get a face-saving exit in the Valley is to be VC funded and by the right guys who make sure all their bets get some sort of an exit. I know of a similar one in the recent past.

Re: Google Buys Slide for $182 Million, Getting More Serious about Social Games

#56

Post by betterlabs »

jgilliam wrote: post #41
betterlabs wrote: post #19

Max is awesome and I love his attitude. But I just never ever understood Slide. And why Google would buy Slide is equally difficult to understand, if not more. Are they buying technology? Or users (on Facebook!)? Or revenues (most likely not!)? Or Max and his team?

It's the same reason they partnered with Zynga. It's a backdoor way to get at large chunks of Facebook profile data for ad targeting.

Really? I think Google, Microsoft and a couple others like RapLeaf already have a ton of Facebook profile data already.

Re: Google Buys Slide for $182 Million, Getting More Serious about Social Games

#57

Post by davcro »

BenS wrote: post #37
davcro wrote: post #29

This does not make sense. I am the developer of two Facebook apps, Friend Interview and Quiz Monster. I would argue those two apps are more valuable than Slide's and there is no way they are worth $182 million. What is Google buying?

Google is buying distribution across many social networks in lots of countries, and a team 100+ smart engineers and product designers.

Quiz Monster and Friend Interview have a bigger userbase both international and in the US than Slide's apps. Granted I'm only looking at FB here, but IMO that is the only social network that matters. I work solo and believe that my apps could be run with just one educated rails developer. Isnt that a better buy than a smaller app that needs 100 eningeers?

And I'm not some special case here. There are a handful of Indy fb devs with bigger apps than mine.

This deal makes zero sense to me.

Re: Google Buys Slide for $182 Million, Getting More Serious about Social Games

#58

Post by jgilliam »

aspiringsensei wrote: post #51
jgilliam wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the same reason they partnered with Zynga. It's a backdoor way to get at large chunks of Facebook profile data for ad targeting.

I hadn't considered this angle: are you able to flesh out the degree to which they will be able to do this? I'm non-technical, so it's not immediately clear to me: * the potential increase in cashflow yields from improving ad targeting (what change will it make? isn't google pretty good at this already?) * How the data from Zynga & Slide will flow out of the facebook ecosystem and into the broader web (is your slide…

You can get some small amount of information about a person via Facebook publicly, but to really get at all the info, the user needs to authorize their Facebook account to the app. Zynga and Slide have tens of millions of people who've done this for their apps, if not more.

All Google has to do is put an ad on all the Zynga and Slide pages that passes them the Facebook UID of the current user, and it could become part of their ad targeting. Then they can get the actual Facebook data from Zynga and Slide.

Google wants everyone to give this info to them directly, that's what Google.Me, Google Buzz, and all their different social experiments have been about. But that hasn't been working out so well, so these deals are a cheap way to make sure they can still get at the Facebook profile data.

Re: Google Buys Slide for $182 Million, Getting More Serious about Social Games

#59

Post by jaspertheghost »

pjhyett wrote: post #22

I'll never understand why Max took his Paypal money and built an online widget company. Hopefully he'll attempt something meaningful next time.

Slide started out as a global recommendation push engine for shopping items. They pivoted to a widget company when it took off.

Re: Google Buys Slide for $182 Million, Getting More Serious about Social Games

#60

Post by jaspertheghost »

jgilliam wrote: post #41
betterlabs wrote: post #19

Max is awesome and I love his attitude. But I just never ever understood Slide. And why Google would buy Slide is equally difficult to understand, if not more. Are they buying technology? Or users (on Facebook!)? Or revenues (most likely not!)? Or Max and his team?

It's the same reason they partnered with Zynga. It's a backdoor way to get at large chunks of Facebook profile data for ad targeting.

Social network composes of three parts: social graph, reach applications, and games. Slide provides social media applications and the expertise to make them. The part about FB profile data is not true, and based on ToS, they wouldn't be able to use it.
Post reply on HN