I personally think Yahoo and Facebook would be a good cultural fit.

Despite all the outcry from outspoken ‘old school’ Flickr members (many of them my friends/colleagues) when Yahoo more fully integrated Flickr I know most of them are still using the service just as heavily as they were before. It was just a transition that had to come sooner or later. Google or any other portal would’ve (and has) done the same thing in that situation. There were bound to be some complaints when it happened. But I think Yahoo actually handled that one very well overall and has (thus far) been smart to pretty much not mess with a good thing by letting Flickr largely stand on its own.

They just went through a similar transition with Upcoming.org and they seem to be taking the same track there as well - don’t mess with a good thing.

If they handled a Facebook acquisition the same way I could actually see it working well for them over the long run. As you noted though, the problem is I don’t know if Yahoo (or anyone) will be able to afford what Facebook apparently wants.

I see what you’re saying. But I think there’s a problem with the approach Yahoo is taking with it’s acquisition strategy. I know it’s been done a million times for a million reasons, but I’m going to compare how Yahoo handles its acquired businesses to how Google handles theirs.

Yahoo, as you pointed out, seems to leave most of its acquisitions alone to function as standalone services. The problem is that we’ve now got a network of Yahoo services spread out across a million domains, brands, and communities. There’s no unity - it’s a big disjointed mess of properties that don’t mesh together into a Yahoo whole.

Google, on the other hand, has begun integrating its acquired business back into the Google fold. Google Audio Ads, for example, are now fully integrated with AdWords. Google Analytics was recently “Googlefied” and made a more cohesive part of the whole Google experience. Google Docs & Spreadsheets is a wholly Google experience. All of these products started as acquisitions. But now they work together and add to overall Google world. YouTube is one large exception - but I’m still not convinced that it isn’t coming. And you can bet your bottom dollar that DoubleClick and Feedburner will be integrated into AdWords ASAP.

If Yahoo isn’t interested in using these acquisitions to build the Yahoo community and Yahoo brand, it makes me question their strategy. Specifically… I’d be curious to know what that strategy is… if it one exists. Haha.

As far as Facebook goes… the more I’ve thought about it this morning… the more I’m starting to think Facebook should go it alone. There’s potential to build a massive brand in time - one that could eventually even compete directly with Yahoo. I don’t think it’d be wise for Facebook to let Yahoo or anyone else stifle that potential.

Yeah. Google’s done a better job of consolidating their acquisitions under the Google brand umbrella than Yahoo. Granted, that’s a little easier to do when you’re buying more utility-like properties than ’social’ properties as Google has (up until recently) mostly bought. Deja News, Blogger and YouTube are the biggest community-oriented properties that Google has purchased to-date. Rebranding something like Keyhole, dMarc, Urchin, etc is relatively easy. Rebranding something like Deja news is much more tenuous which is why it took them quite awhile to completely bring it under the Google fold. Blogger took nearly as long to bring into the fold and STILL operates under the Blogger brand even though you now use your Google account for login (very similar to Flickr.) It’ll be interesting to see how/when they try to tackle the same thing with YouTube. I imagine they’ll take an approach closer to Blogger than they will to Deja given the content and large community.

For more tool-like properties like Konfabulator and Oddpost, Yahoo did a relatively good job of consolidating those under their brand umbrella. But just like Urchin or Keyhole, that’s pretty easy to do.

I think because of what/who Google is right now, people are also more open to embracing anything associated with the Google brand. Yahoo’s not a pariah, but it’s definitely not the golden boy now. So it could VERY easily backfire if they pushed too hard to try to bring some of their community-based sites like Flickr, Upcoming and Delicious more into the Yahoo fold.

We both agree on the main thing re:Yahoo acquiring Facebook - It’s probably not going to happen. If they didn’t sell last year (when they got a VERY big offer while it was still a matter of IF they could be the next Myspace) they’re almost certainly not going to sell now that they’re CLEARLY on their way to being another MySpace.

Yeah… I don’t think Facebook will sell any time soon. Maybe at some point down the road - when the thrill of running a company has worn off - Zuckerberg will sell. But I think he’s having too much fun (and too much success) to sell right now.

From day one Facebook has played a different tune than MySpace (not only in the service itself but also in business practice).

Perhaps watching MySpace get snapped up by News Corp and then effectively stagnate growth-wise has turned the attitude at Facebook toward one of independence instead of acquisition?