No such acquisition

David Kuan — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 09:09:52 -0700

No such acquisition occurred. Community is right. Hope this one gets judged very soon.

Facebook acquires Friendfeed

The Standard — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 08:10:05 -0700

Judgment: This did not occur, which the community correctly predicted. Judged at 0%. -- The Industry Standard

Original prediction: FriendFeed's Paul Buchheit has a post up this morning that is bullish on Facebook's prospects. Might the feeling be mutual? There was a lot of talk last week about the relative merits of FriendFeed versus Facebook's new lifestream feature.

Now, Facebook, for example, chose to build their own IM functionality rather than buy, say, a company like Social.im, so this isn't a sure bet in the least, despite the natural affinity. It remains to be determined what Facebook's strategy is with regards to synergies (and competetive threats) within their growing ecosystem. The FriendFeed Facebook application, for example, is very popular. But FriendFeed can't aggregate Facebook activity because the latter is a closed system -- an acquisition would unite FriendFeed's influencer-heavy user base and superior technology with Facebook's mainstream popularity (which is already familiar with the overall concept from the news feed). Facebook's lifestream feature might be just a proof-of-concept in advance of a deal (and a stake in the ground that would bring leverage to the negotiating table). Remember when Facebook was all the rage with the likes of Scoble and more? An acquisition might also help restore some of that sheen. And with all of the recent departures from Google to Facebook, this might be a better fit for Ex-Googlers Bret Taylor, Jim Norris, and Buchheit.

As far as we can tell, then FriendFeed guys havn't said much in the way of a response to Facebook's (arguably encroaching) move, with the exception of Buchheit's post.

This is a prediction that Facebook will announce an agreement to acquire FriendFeed (defined as a majority share). The acquisition need not be approved or have been completed by the close of this prediction -- it needs only be announced to be cause for favorable judgement.

The Industry Standard - Facebook acquires Friendfeed - Comments

No such acquisition

Facebook acquires Friendfeed