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Social Networking - Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Losing Face over facebook.com

We're too thick (and perhaps too old) to comprehend the magic behind facebook.com, the undergrad social networking site. A year ago we opined (in the context of talking about Accel, which is a facebook investor and also invested in Real Networks): "Is thefacebook really the next Real Networks? After all, it's a social networking site that is barley a year old and is run by a kid from the class of '06. If our mole is right, this strikes us as a hasty move by Accel. Then again, back in the day, we thought eBay was a silly concept - so we'll wait and see."

Now, barely a year later, Businessweek is reporting: "The owners of the privately held company [facebook] have turned down a $750 million offer and hope to fetch as much as $2 billion in a sale, senior industry executives familiar with the matter say."

Those are staggering numbers -- and, frankly, we're inclined to believe them. If a deal goes through, all kudos to Accel for seeing value in this one when others (including ourselves) didn't.

Read: Facebook's On the Block - [BusinessWeek]
Read: Accel Gives it The Old College Try - [the a:c]