Google must buyout facebook for $30 billion or more
Google is at an important junture in its history. It is poised to conquer online and offline media but it can’t afford to make any blunders, and one such blunder would be to not aquire facebook for $30 billion dollars or more.
While $30 billion may seen obscene for Facebook, a socialnetworking site that only makes $150 million a year in revenue, it isnt. For one, google’s stock has been soaring for the past two months, rising from just $550 to $740 without any sign of slowing. A $30 billion dollar investment would be just 8% of its market cap. And if google rises another 10% its already paid for, all $30 billion of it. So even if facebook somehow falters the loss will be negligible.
Google decision to buyout youtube for 1.6 billion in October 2006 was brilliant. Youtube is easily worth 10 billion now, and has catapulted google in the forefront of online media. back then all the overpaid, dinosaur pundits were calling it a bubble and pverpriced, but in hindsight it wasn’t. And neither is purchasing facebook for 30 billion.
If Google fails to buyout facebook, it is very much possible facebook could supercede google in the next decade. I illustrate such a case in my blog post Facebook worth one trillion?
Facebook could easily develop its own ad delivery service for publishers and advertisers to compete with Adsense and Adwords. Also, the sheer multitude of facebook apps and other widgets will cajole internet users to spend less time surfing the web and clicking ads and spend more time on facebook interacting with the widgets instead. Insead of doing a google search a widget could deliver relevant websites to a facebook user without ever having to leave facebook. The possibilities are endless. Of any company in existance, Facebook poses the most emminant threat to google’s future. Much more so than Yahoo or Microsoft.
In conslusion, it is imperitive that google buyout the remaining 98% or so remaning stake of facebook NOW before the valuation of facebook goes up any more. If google waits another six months it may be too late. Facebook now is like paypal in 2000 or youtube in 2006 or Myspace in 2005. Google has no choice, and it would be a phenomenal business move.