FYI, Karma's best mechanic is that you send a gift to a recipient without entering cc info; then when the recipient accepts, you become socially obligated to complete the payment process. It also asks the recipient for their address, so you only need to pick the item and enter their email (or FB select). It's generally a beautifully designed app.
I found their website to be beautifully designed as well. I had no idea what Karma was, but a single click and scroll told me exactly what it was and how it works. It's also pretty neat.
Yes, this is a really good mechanic. The way they also volley back and forth with notifications on when the card is read, and prompt the recipient to send a card/gift back, all make for a great experience.
Congratulations to the Karma team. I was the founding CTO of a competitor, Giftly, have thought about/worked on the space a great deal, and have been really impressed with what y'all have built. You deserve it.
Great acquisition for Facebook. People are wondering what kind of monetization strategies Facebook will use to make them worth their post-IPO valuation, and Karma is now one good example.
Looks like FB is on acquisition spree. Instagram, Glancee and now Karma. Just in the space of one month. Are these (Glancee and Karma) people acquisitions?
This feels like the Microsoft strategy: sit on a pile of cash and watch others innovate, then buy the guys that succeed (or clone them if you can't buy them). It's a good formula for success because you don't take the risks of introducing an unwanted product into the market, and it's not a bad deal for the acquired besides.
Why would you expect that? By many metrics, Facebook's current valuation cannot be justified by their advertising revenue potential, so why shouldn't we expect Facebook to look to other products for revenue. Amazon, Google, and Apple all have very diverse revenue streams outside of their original core products (online retail, AdSense, and Macs), and in many ways it is the reason that these companies are so successful. If anything I would assume that Facebook is looking long and hard at opportunities to generate revenue from other products.
This acquisition smells more like Yahoo than Google.
I guess Facebook is going to make a bit to consolidate as many services as possible into their social network. I wonder how that's going to impact usability.
Which purchased startups has Facebook actually integrated into their product? I can't think of any. Friendfeed and Instagram have kept running as standalone projects. The rest have been shut down without any Facebook features that are clear successors.
I hope they're getting a mandate to build gifting / ecommerce transactions into a revenue stream for Facebook whatever way they can. Bring back Free Gifts / FB Gifts with a vengeance. One-click purchase of products advertised in the sidebar!
And congrats again Ben, Lee, and the whole Karma team. They're going to do great things with the resources of FB.
Ben & Lee are a great team, from parlaying the winnings of a business plan competition into a hit app (tap defense), to building a successful company around app marketing using their app to gain traction (tapjoy) and now karma. Can't wait to see what they do with Karma and what comes next!
Pretty interesting app and can see how Facebook could utilize the product. I wonder if we will see more of this consolidation in the market place as the big players buy up smaller ones.
But how many such acquisitions actually become 'usable' features in the parent product and how many just end up being talent acquisitions?
I don't imagine it's easy to integrate something into core Facebook than essentially just being a part of the product that uses the API - which can just be done by being an independent entity?
Unsure of the terms of the deal, but maybe this was simply a talent acquisition plus strategic purchase? Maybe the cost wasn't that high. I am sure an offer to work at Facebook and integrate your product into the FB platform has some intangible appeal.
So. Facebook is ostensibly a "public" company except it's still more than 50% controlled by one man and now it has 18 billion dollars of cash to buy up potential competitors before they get big. Zuck has to be feeling pretty damned pleased with himself right about now.
The $18bn is not cash raised for Facebook, it is mostly (can't find if entirely) existing investors selling out. It can use its shares to buy companies though, plus existing cash.
Not angry, more bemused. This has been one of the most unusual IPOs in history, and all the usual suspects (news media, tech blogs, etc.) can find to talk about are the most mundane and least substantive details.
wow... this is how out of touch the wealthy are. No one at all in real life would ever use this idea. I don't want to say like 1%, but honestly this is a tool of a very very small portion of society. The scary part is that a very small portion of society decides if it gets the money to exist.
