4 ms·

Facebook Checks-In On Loopt

24 points by jasonlbaptiste 17y ago

jseifer 17y ago
"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 17y ago
  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.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
  - marcus 17y ago
    "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 17y ago
      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.
seldo 17y ago
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 17y ago
  > 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 17y ago
    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 17y ago
      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 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1149682 I suppose I will have to look this one up.
axod 17y ago
>> "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 17y ago
  "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 ..."
herdrick 17y ago
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 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    Very good point. Perhaps we'll know someday what happened.

"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 17y ago
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.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- marcus 17y ago
  "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 17y ago
    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.

seldo 17y ago

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 17y ago
> 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 17y ago
  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 17y ago
    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 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1149682 I suppose I will have to look this one up.

axod 17y ago

>> "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 17y ago
"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 ..."

herdrick 17y ago

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 17y ago
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 17y ago
  Very good point. Perhaps we'll know someday what happened.