Facebook buys Karma | Hacker News Reader

Facebook buys Karma

blog.getkarma.com

123 pointspitdesi52 comments

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.

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.

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.

Good on these folks for making something awesome!

It looks like an interesting idea, but the thing that throws up a bit of a flag is that it seems susceptible to becoming SkyMall-ish.

I.E. limited and overpriced selections of mixed quality. I don't know that it gives me the precision and control I want with gift selection...

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.

What are you doing now? Would you be interested in working for a new social commerce startup?

I saw the headline and thought it would be about how Morgan Stanley was propping up the Facebook IPO price.

Ditto. There was a concrete floor at $38 today.

Greenshoe.

Or that Facebook really wanted to have an impressive-looking Slashdot profile.

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.

People spend a LOT of money on gifts.

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.

Microsoft developed core products (Word, Windows) mostly in-house (after purchasing seed programs).

I would expect that success of FaceBook would be always defined by the core FaceBook product - social network, not by acquisitions.

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.

Did you mean Google strategy? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Google

Congratulations to Karma but is Facebook on a race with Google for the number of startups acquired this year?

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.

Divvyshot -> Facebook Photos

Looking at this list, it looks like you are right, it's none really:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Faceboo...

Beluga -> FB Messenger

Facebook has made it pretty clear that the majority of their acquisitions have been for talent not technology.

FriendFeed -> Status Feed and Aggregation

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.

Lee is a really nice guy, and has multiple successful companies behind him. Seems like a great move on Facebook's part.

Big time pick up for Facebook. If they can manage to bring Facebook Credits mainstream then everyone watch out.

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!

Zuck seems keen to the Wallstreet fellows on the edge with Facebook's unpredictability.

How do you guys find out about new products and companies?

I had never heard of Glancee or Karma (among many others) before I read the news that they had both been acquired by Facebook.

Karma had a few Techcrunch articles

http://betali.st/

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.

When does facebook have to disclose how much they paid for it?

Looks like Facebook is using their new IPO money wisely.

This is interesting as it shows how Facebook may move away from pure advertising as a revenue stream on the mobile and more towards transactions.

Nice. I'm reminded of how often Facebook is how I know someone's birthday is coming up..,

Now this is a smart buy.

How do you know that without knowing the price?

They had to do SOMETHING with that $16B

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.

A hiding startup is a potential competitor?

You seem angry.

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.

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.

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.

Anybody else read this headline and wish they could buy karma too?

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