The biggest media story last week was the billion-dollar purchase of photo-sharing service Instagram by Facebook — and I ended up talking about it on ABC Radio National’s Media Report on Friday.
If you’d like to explore further than my comments to presenter Richard Aedy, you might like the Wired analysis of the numbers compared with other internet startup buyouts, Paul Wallbank’s refutation of that analysis, and a witty piece in NYMag — as well as my own piece for Crikey.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (4.3MB)
The audio is of course ©2012 Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and there’s a version at the ABC website.
Hi Stil,
I’m not rebutting the analysis so much as pointing out that it isn’t relevant. Those justifying the valuation are cherry picking stats to suit their argument.
Where I think the possible value is for Facebook in the Instagram purchase is in building a portfolio of mobile enabled apps that plug into a FB back end which add even more grist to the massive data mill they’ve developed.
I still think though they’ve overpaid thanks to the curse of FOMO, I’d be fascinated to hear how much the various Silicon Valley insiders drove the various deals that surrounded this transaction.
@Paul Wallbank: Yes, that’s a better way of putting it. I agree that there’s a lot of hand-waving over big-sounding numbers and endless graphs that show a number going up and to the right — and the Fear Of Missing Out.
Still, I’ll bet there’s plenty of chair-kicking at Twitter HQ this week because they missed out.
If Goldman Sachs is the vampire squid, who are the mosquito cuttlefish of Silicon Valley?