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Insiders say Google was interested in buying Snap for at least $30B last year
- dmix 9y agoCould the investors/founders have cashed out as easily (or for more money) through this type of acquisition vs an IPO? That's basically the only relevant question here. I doubt Snap would have been a better consumer product under Google's direction. They have a consistent habit of killing them off.
- josteink 9y agoTrue or not, Google clearly needed yet another messaging service, which they in about a year's time would have messed up and deprecated. How about they just unify what they already have on offer, and get it working properly (and maybe worldwide this time!) before messing with yet another service? sigh
- arkitaip 9y agoI think Google's fragmented approach to messaging is hilarious but what's the harm in approaching messaging from different angles and apps? Why not keep at it as startups would, but throwing things at the wall and seeing what sticks?
- josteink 9y agoI think the biggest problem are discovery and execution. Take the basic problem: How do I know which of my contacts I can contact where? Google already had a unified account system, which covers a huge portion of the internet-using world: Google-accounts. It would be perfect for discovery and tying things together neatly with what they already have to offer. If a contact your are chatting with in "Hangouts" (formerly Google talk and before that gchat?) also was using Duo on his phone... Google could show an icon for Due and offer a video-call to this person. If both systems used the same ID. Instead they chose to create entirely new login systems and identities for their new IM systems. This needless fragmentation means I don't know which of my contacts are available on which of the many google-provided IM-services. Some small changes here could really have significantly lowered the pain involved, and made all these different apps tie together in a way which would have been useful. Now we just have a mess, getting worse every year, and I now refuse to use any of them for it.
- dcole2929 9y agoBecause this is honestly a really hard problem. There honestly just not really a good way of combining accounts without lots of manual effort on the part of the user. Users also largely don't want this. When Google combined Gmail and Youtube accounts it was just a god awful clusterfuck that required a lot of manual intervention for each user to get their stuff back in order. It also was a net negative because people didn't want their email/google+ tied to their anonymous youtube accounts.
- rifung 9y agoWell I think there was no need to have separate accounts to begin with. YouTube and Gmail had different accounts because YouTube was a separate company. I work for Google but opinions are my own.
- GFischer 9y agoI think having the option for separate accounts would have been best. I try not to post anything on Youtube or favourite videos or anything because it's tied to my "real" Google identity which is very traceable to me. For the same reason I try not to link my Facebook or Google accounts to games and stuff I can help it (though I've mostly given up). I did have a "fake" Facebook account for lots of stuff that wanted access to my Facebook feed and it's craptacular. Same for Google, but switching accounts for Youtube is a hassle,
- josteink 9y ago> I think having the option for separate accounts would have been best. That's very contextual IMO. Having the same handle across various private communication tools provided by the same company makes sense. Forcing you to use your real identity when making public comments traceable across the internet is something completely different. Forcing Youtubers to use real identities was bad. For these IM services, creating new accounts was bad.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- JustSomeNobody 9y agoBecause eventually consumers will start to distrust Google (in the sense that their products won't last). Even in this throw-away society we have today, people don't want that much churn with messaging.
- s73ver 9y agoThey never put enough effort behind anything to get it to stick. And you can only do that so many times before people are just not interested in what you have to offer because, no matter how good it might be, they're thinking that you're just going to move onto the next thing in a year or so.
- rhizome 9y agoBecause that conflicts with the goals of the "let's see if we can paint the walls with Teflon" division.
- gogopuppygogo 9y agoBecause when you are Google and you depreciate Google Talk for Google Hangouts and add steps to connecting with people you push users like me who don't want to deal with the extras steps toward using Facebook and iMessage for my messaging needs.
- recursive 9y agoThe harm is that I, a user, doesn't want to download any google messaging apps, because their usable life is low.
- Goronmon 9y agoTrue or not, Google clearly needed yet another messaging service, which they in about a year's time would have messed up and deprecated. Exactly. It's almost been a year since Allo was released, which means we are due for an announcement of a new messaging app from Google. Likely something that combines Allo and Duo into a single app, and call it something like Trio. Of course, when they inevitably split "Trio" into separate apps a year after release, they won't be able to stick with the same name convention.
- ImSkeptical 9y agoOnePointFiveio A - For text OnePointFiveio B - For video
- e9 9y agoForget Duo and Allo, they are still splitting and combining Google Hangouts! I remember when they combined SMS into Google Hangouts it was game changer for me but just recently I got notified that they are splitting out SMS functionality out of Google Hangouts...
- tedunangst 9y agoWhy be the next Instagram when you can be the next GroupOn?
- TY 9y agoI think WHO is buying is just as important as WHAT is being bought. Who knows what would happen to WhatsApp if Google bought it? Could it become one of Google's current chat apps that no one uses?
- rgbrenner 9y agoWhen was the last time they bought a popular rapidly growing platform? The last that I can remember was YouTube, and that turned out very well for youtube and google.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- pchristensen 9y agoThat was also 11 years ago, and only 2.5 yrs after Google's IPO.
- nextstep 9y agoI think that was the point: Google almost bought Groupon http://www.businessinsider.com/groupon-google-deal-turn-down-2012-6 http://www.businessinsider.com/groupon-google-deal-turn-down...
- rtx 9y agoI am waiting to run my ads on WhatsApp.
- digitalzombie 9y ago> Why be the next Instagram when you can be the next GroupOn? That's an unfair comparison imo. Snapchat have bought an AI company in Eastern Europe that does those cat and dog filter on people. Groupon was very easy to emulate, I don't think Snapchat is as easy as Groupon. The infrastructures to set up Snapchat and those AI filters and such is a bit harder. They have enough tough-to-emulate problems to continue to be ahead of copy cats while continue to keep innovating and keep that rift. Snap problem is making money now but that's the same with Twitter, Facebook (initially), Foursquare, etc... I'm optimistic that they'll start making profit not sure if it'll be enough to satisfy their investor (e.g. twitter) but they will.
- askafriend 9y agoI wouldn't take this seriously. It sounds like they were just internal rumors that spread around and then eventually got to a journalist. Unless the internal sources directly and verifiably worked on drafting the proposal or discussing the concrete deal being purported - it's most likely inaccurate, overly optimistic hearsay. Let's use our best judgement here and not humor the journalist for clicks and outrage.
- gk1 9y agoEven if the rumors were true, it's meaningless. Every business the size of Google has a list of potential acquisition targets. (There was a leak of one such list from Amazon or Microsoft, I believe.) "Interest" and "intention" are two separate things, and the latter counts for a lot more.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Bitto 9y agoCorrect.
- chollida1 9y agoMany years ago Microsoft was trying to purchase Yahoo for $45 a share. Every company has their Yahoo moment, where they consider making an over the top purchase offer for a company, that in hind site looks like a terrible idea. I'm not sure how far the talks went, though given that this is just coming out now, I'm guessing they didn't go very far. Would be interesting to know if the offer is still actually on the table like the article hints at. This is the price you pay for giving up all voting rights. If Evan doesn't want to sell no sale, no matter how good of an offer is on the table. With voting rights atleast someone can hold the CEO's feet to the fire to make them consider the idea.
- puranjay 9y agoThe MS-Yahoo stories misses the fact that MS was trying to buy Yahoo with its Alibaba stake. The Yahoo that was sold recently did not include the Alibaba stake. This is where the key value of Yahoo lies. If you break it down, the Yahoo Alibaba + Yahoo Japan stake + Yahoo's final selling price equals Microsoft's $45/share offer
- nashashmi 9y agoAnd the Alibaba stage was bigger back then. It's sad Yahoo chose to throw in the towel and spin itself off as an internet company rather than use the Alibaba stake to resuscitate.
- cobookman 9y agoI don't think they had a choice. I think Marissa tried her hardest to save the company. after some amount of time activist investors started to get in the way, and push an Alibaba sale.
- praneshp 9y agoI'm not Marissa's biggest fan (and have made a few comments here against her), but the spinoff was not her first choice. In fact, there was an original plan that would have spun off Alibaba and a small part of Yahoo (Yahoo Small Business, I think) and kept the core business going. Activist investors weren't very receiving of that idea though. Source: I was at Yahoo back then.
- zitterbewegung 9y agoYea, people said the same thing about Digg. TBH Google is probably interested in buying anything remotely social. Digg had the reason of not accepting their corporate "culture". Either that or Google figures out that they just have to wait and hire the CEO once the company fails (this happened to Digg).
- mandeepj 9y agoThis high value only because facebook bought whatsapp for almost $19 billion. Google offered $10b for whatsapp. They gave up for anything beyond it thinking it is too much only to realize later it was not.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- acchow 9y agoWhatsapp is probably much more valuable to Facebook than to anyone else. Could Google really significantly monetize Whatsapp? It seems Facebook can't - but at least Facebook can ensure their other revenue streams aren't decimated by free-and-fast Whatsapp.
- sjg007 9y agoGoogle needs a messenger + profile play. Snapchat can add profiles (if they don't have one already).
- naturalgradient 9y agoI am the only one thinking of http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html http://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html? Why place an over one year old alleged offer in the media today? Because the shares are free-falling, user growth quarter-over-quarter will likely be abysmal and float will drastically increase in 2 weeks. The only possible sliver of hope for shareholders right now is a potential buyout. Remember how many times Twitter rallied on 'chatter' of a Google bid? https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/08/twitter-stock-price-rises-google-buyout-rumours-not-first-time https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/08/twitter-s... https://www.cnet.com/uk/news/twitter-buyout-rumors-google-salesforce-interest/ https://www.cnet.com/uk/news/twitter-buyout-rumors-google-sa... Edit: interesting number of down votes, is this such a far fetched conspiracy theory? If it was such an open secret at Snap, why has this not come out yet?
- drenvuk 9y agoYep. I feel like it's time to manually make a list of egregious submarine launchers, though it seems that it's journalists who's coverage is over a limited set of companies such as social media that are prone to doing things like this. It feels like there should be a filter that considers who owns a paper, who the journalist has previously covered in depth, and what kinds of stories they're printing. Maybe something like a shill or hater score? I'm not sure how easy this would be. Does anyone know if something like this exists?
- danso 9y agoPick a reporter from any outlet and manually perform the analysis that you've suggested and I think you'll see that it is not easily computational. Even basic taxonomy of "kinds of stories" is not well implemented on a service such as Google News.
- avn2109 9y agoYou'll also find that almost all reporters do the things you don't like. It's a mostly-inevitable consequence of the system of incentives and constraints that apply to almost all reporters.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ChrisBland 9y agoGlorified article meant to inflate the stock price.
- bpodgursky 9y agoWell, if Google had acquired Snap last year, at least they'd have a decent Android app, which couldn't possibly hurt their user numbers.
- dingo_bat 9y agoI'm not so sure. Google's own apps are horrid on Android compared to iOS.
- whipoodle 9y agoIt's not just farfetched, it also doesn't really add up or make any sense.
- naturalgradient 9y agoCare to elaborate?
- whipoodle 9y agoNo (To be clear though, I didn't downvote you. I can't downvote anyone)
- sctb 9y agoWe detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14922884 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14922884 and marked it off-topic.
- notadoc 9y agoDo kids still use Snapchat?
- anotherbrownguy 9y agoYes, with all the gamification, many of them can't quit. What the problem is that kids don't have much money to pay for anything. So, if you make a product for kids, make sure it is something their parents will pay for. Snapchat is not one of them.
- nice_981 9y agoThis is so wrong at many levels. The reason why apps and companies are focussed in getting the 16-22 year olds are 1. They have very high power in changing their parents purchases. 2. Their word of mouth power is exponential compared to a guy who is 30 years old working in corporation. 3. 16-22 year olds are going to become 20-28 year olds in 4 years which is a real threat to facebook. This generation doesn't want to be part of Facebook.
- dalfonso 9y agoDisclaimer: I have a small amount of Snapchat shares. Every time I interact with any sub-21 year old person, I ask them 2 questions: 1.What's the most popular social network among your group of friends? I'd estimate 7-9/10 say Snapchat. If it is Snapchat, I proceed with question 2. 2.Do you read/interact with the "Discover" section of Snapchat? (Because this is where I think Snapchat has the most potential to actually make money.) I'd say 5-7/10 say Yes. In short, yes, kids still use Snapchat.
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago> Every time I interact with any sub-21 year old person, I ask them 2 questions You sound like a fun person - JK. But among my conservative, Midwestern sub-21 family and acquaintances, the answer was surging to Snapchat around Christmas. Then they moved lifestyle posts to Instagram, and moved communication/socializing back to Facebook. Also, they don't often interact intentionally with the Discover section.
- mikehines 9y agoSnapchat is consistently the top 5 free apps in the US. I think it's worth the 30B for Google to break into that.
- ribosometronome 9y agoAs is Youtube -- usually higher. Ex. Youtube is #2 right now on iOS for me.
- coralreef 9y agoIts also not profitable, has slowing growth, and is losing market share as Instagram/FB copies its features. I do think the product team at Snapchat is stellar though, they are creative and innovative and in-tune with what young people want.
- muse900 9y agoI'll agree with you. I strongly believe instagram is taking over snaptchat. All of my friends switched to instagram from snaptchat. Some of them will still post on both instagram and snaptchat but it feels like they keep posting on snaptchat until their last set of contacts move from snaptchat to instagram itself. I do believe that the people working for snaptchat are trying their best, and they are innovative etc, its just seems that instagram itself has become the new hip and its seriously competing with snaptchat.
- flinty 9y agoIt's interesting how Facebook has such a keen eye to spot the next pivot and move their giant ship inch by inch methodically in the right direction. They did it with newsfeed for the main site, main site to mobile transition(albeit with the html5 fiasco thrown in for a year), carving out messenger(and pivoting it to another screen to show ads) and now pivoting Instagram to subsume Snapchat. Kinda how Netflix vs HBO is a question of - how fast can Netflix become HBO before HBO becomes Netflix. Instagram is definitely trying their best to have part of its identity be Snapchat. What is Snapchat trying to become rapidly before Instagram subsumes Snapchat? The walls are closing in fast(like it happened with Twitter) and if they don't figure out the answer soon they will suffer the same fate.
- bedhead 9y agoYeah, and Google also reportedly offered to buy Groupon for $7 billion, a year before it went public. Not sure what kind of consolation that gives to shareholders now...
- tehwebguy 9y agoHah agreed. I bet it wouldn't pass DD tho. SEC was not stoked about the way they booked revenue considering the % that went right out the door to coupon vendors.
- fareesh 9y agoDoes Google really need another messaging app?
- adventured 9y agoWell, SNAP is currently trading for $15 billion. If they can get $20 to $22.5 billion for the company right now in an acquisition by eg Google, they should immediately take it. Twitter is the picture of where they're going, best case scenario (the difference in risk of course being, Instagram isn't a serious threat to Twitter's existence). Twitter has four times the sales (annualized run-rate), more cash, a lower quarterly burn rate (now), with 23% less market cap.
- nice_981 9y agoWell i think you have never used snapchat. Everyone in this thread are not all accounted in the TAM for snapchat. Before concluding that they should sell or not, i recommend people to use snapchat for six months. Snapchat is a product which provides delightful experiences to communicate with your friends where you can express yourself as the way you are, instead of waiting for a trophy moment. Well, SNAP DAP > TWTR DAP, TWTR Average time spent per day: 1-2 minutes SNAP Average time spent per day: 30-35 minutes. So SNAP has 30X potential than dead twitter with no product innovation.
- kisstheblade 9y ago"can express yourself as the way you are, instead of waiting for a trophy moment" And then someone takes a screenshot and "blackmails" you with it later (read this concept of snap-blackmailing somewhere else just today)
- sidcool 9y agoLooking at Snap's condition right now, and how Instagram is routing it, they made a smart decision not buying it for that ridiculous amount of money.
- tanilama 9y agoGood, now, they can buy it with 50% discount. What a steal!