NY REUTERS — Sep 21 — Facebook is in serious talks to sell itself to Yahoo for an amount that could approach $1 billion, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. Facebook also held discussions with Microsoft and Viacom over the past year.
Mark Brooks: Will students on Facebook feel the same with Yahoo or Microsoft as momma bear? MySpace is doing well under News Corp it would seem, but I think that dynamic is very different from the potential dynamic between Facebook and Microsoft. Your comments please?
Yes, Robert, you are quite right. Government loves to expand its power, loves to regulate. So far we have been very lucky, with minimum intrusion by government into the field of online dating. But this won’t last forever. The IMBRA legislation that was implemented in the USA this past April, which regulates dating agencies and websites that specialize in introducing American men to foreign women, is just the tip of the iceberg.
All of us in the dating industy have to work together to prevent further intrusions into dating.
I think Yahoo would make an excellent home for facebook. Why not? Yahoo has a great brand image and efforts to launch social networks have failed more from a lack of demand than a lack of credibility in the dating space. Yahoo personals works and IM would be good fit also. Microsoft might seem a bit more threatening as a dating den mother but even they might be able to keep their hands off facebook and let the community do its thing.