Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Want to buy a few million people?

Facebook is on the market. BusinessWeek Online reports that the owners of the privately held company have turned down a $750 million offer and hope to sell for as much as $2 billion. You may think of Facebook as a mere shadow of MySpace (at least in terms of media attention) but it is a powerhouse of its own. According to comScore Media Metrix, it is the 7th most trafficked site in all the internet. MySpace remains the second most visited website, sandwiched between Yahoo and Google. Last year it was sold to Rupert Murdoch's media empire last year for "only" $580 million. How much a year changes things.

So despite the bad press, social networking sites remain popular and apparently expensive. Given that big business does not seem to be concerned over the bad publicity of these sites as breeding grounds for predators, it doesn't look as though they are going to fade into the woodwork anytime soon. All the more reason to talk about them in a healthly, constructive environment to really understand the benefits as well as the dangers they bring.

No comments: