
Facebook Checks-In On Loopt - jasonlbaptiste
http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/24/facebook-loopt-talks/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Techcrunch+%28TechCrunch%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
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jseifer
"There is no indication that Facebook has made an actual offer to buy Loopt at
this time, and in fact we don’t even have direct information that negotiations
are taking place. But it’s clear that Facebook is at least considering
acquiring Loopt, and/or others in this space."

You just have to love the writing on TC.

~~~
loganfrederick
I know it's easy to comment on how oddly (or poorly) written some TC articles
can be, but this is taken out of context.

Right before the quote you posted, TechCrunch says, "Facebook has been doing
background checks, known as due diligence...."

There aren't too many reasons for one private company to do due diligence on
another private company besides acquiring it. When reading the actual article,
the logical leap makes more sense than taking that quote out of context.

~~~
marcus
_"There aren't too many reasons for one private company to do due diligence on
another private company besides acquiring it"_

That is an often repeated but mistaken myth.

There aren't many reasons for a company to agree going through a due-diligence
except for the chance to being bought, unfortunately some companies use due-
diligence as a research tool into markets they think they might be interested
in with no real intention of actually purchasing the inspected company,
sometimes even developing a competing product at the SAME time.

~~~
loganfrederick
True, that's why I worded it as "aren't too many reasons". Perhaps I'm naive,
but I'd like to think that this isn't more than (made up percentage ahead) 10%
of private company due diligence investigations.

Although where you are more likely correct, and what I didn't think through
well enough before my initial comment, is that in the case of Facebook/Loopt,
it is possible that Facebook is building a Loopt competitor, rather than
buying Loopt.

ALTHOUGH, you would think Loopt would know this and wouldn't open itself to
Facebook's scrutiny. Perhaps Facebook is making the case to Loopt that they're
interested in purchasing them, but actually have much more sinister ideas?

Ah, the politics of M&A. I love it.

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herdrick
I don't like to see this kind of story reported. If Facebook doesn't now buy
Loopt it will look like something bad came up in due diligence, making Loopt
less attractive to other potential acquirers, at least for a while. Further,
Facebook will be tempted to use that fact for leverage.

But maybe reporting on it makes no difference because enough people in the
industry would know about it anyway. I don't know.

~~~
gyardley
Heh, when I read the story I assumed that MG's source was an executive at
Loopt.

If Facebook is truly doing due diligence on Loopt, MG's article will get the
attention of others who may come and take a look and create a competitive
bidding environment. Anonymously slipping TechCrunch a tidbit is the easiest
way to do this without being caught shopping the company and irritating
Facebook.

~~~
herdrick
Very good point. Perhaps we'll know someday what happened.

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seldo
As the blog post points out, Facebook has one of the most popular iPhone apps
in the world (and Blackberry, and Android) but despite that big mobile user
base hasn't made a play in the geo space, so this makes sense on that front.

However, one of Loopt's biggest use-cases is location-based dating. I think
trying to get into the dating business would be a terrible mistake for
Facebook.

~~~
jey
> However, one of Loopt's biggest use-cases is location-based dating.

How so? They're not doing anything in that direction as far as I know. Is this
just your _suggestion_ that it would be a good use case for them to pursue?

> I think trying to get into the dating business would be a terrible mistake
> for Facebook.

Why? Facebook could do it a _lot_ better than any of the existing dating-only
sites with the info they have on everyone's social graph and their high
penetration. They probably wouldn't want to come out and blatantly add a
"dating" feature, but instead just add features that "happen" to facilitate
dating use-cases. A lot more people would be willing to do internet dating if
it wasn't explicitly "internet dating", but instead just happened as an
organic process on a site they were already a part of for other reasons.

~~~
marshally
Facebook is already a daters delight. It has facilitated more hookups to date
than Match.com.

You can browse your social graph, find out who is single, check out their
pics, their profiles, and the minutia of what they ate for breakfast last
Tuesday. If you like what you see, you can send them all manner of messages
through platform features (would you like to "poke" Jennifer? "Poke"?
Really?). And if you wind up in a relationship with this person, you both can
mark that on your profiles (and later, so can you mark your Bukowskian
divorce).

Facebook Connect, Farmville, and the fact that your Grandmother signed up for
an account has not changed the fact that Facebook's roots are in helping
college kids hook up for date.

~~~
wmblaettler
This is my first time ever seeing the term "Bukowskian", but moments after
reading this comment, I saw it again here:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1149682>

I suppose I will have to look this one up.

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axod
>> "Jupiter Research recently stated that location based services could
generate nearly $13 billion in revenue by 2014."

Location based! It's gonna be big I tell ya! What BS. Where do they pluck
these numbers from?

~~~
marshally
"Well, there's a billion people in China. If I can just gain 1% of that
market, and sell one soda per year to each of them ..."

