BUSINESS BLOGS
BUSINESS BLOGS
category: business
24 Sep 2007

You have to wonder, if today’s news on WSJ re: MSFT investing $300-500M for a 5% stake in Facebook, valuing the company at $10-15B is a legitimate new rumor, or just an offshoot of AllThingsD.com’s post by Kara Swisher?

This is awfully akin to when a new story on MSFT/YHOO merger shot YHOO’s stock up 18% in one day, even though the story was simply a rehash of an old story… we saw the same thing last year when an AOL/MSFT rumor was rehashed by Marketwatch based on old news.

I don’t know, but this could be Google vs. MSFT fighting over Facebook and shooting up its paper value, a la DCLK.  You have to wonder, will these movies really help or hurt Facebook shareholders long term.

Ask yourself: did Google’s $1B investment for 5% of AOL really help or hurt AOL?  Today, I’d say AOL is caught between a rock and a hard place because of that deal.  But, who listens to me?