Updated: TripAdvisor Denies Buying Facebook App | Hacker News Reader

Updated: TripAdvisor Denies Buying Facebook App

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13 pointshoratio0510 comments

Just found this statement from Craig Ulliott (creator of the Where I've Been app) on news.com (http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9761584-7.html):

"There have been some rumors in the market that we have sold our business. These rumors are not true. Our future development plans, combined with our robust community of users, current growth rates, and the attractiveness of the travel vertical, have led to a number of strategic discussions with potential partners/acquirers, but we have not agreed to any deals and we are committed to building Where I've Been into a sustainable and profitable standalone business."

Yup. I posted it in this thread a while back, but looks like it got buried under earlier posts: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43352

It looks to me like the (alleged) TripAdvisor purchase was first discussed at AppDevCon (a gathering of Facebook developers, entrepreneurs, and investors hosted by SocialMedia) on 8/15. This discussion took place before Inside Facebook wrote up the "Biggest Facebook App Acquisition Yet" post.

Inside Facebook live-blogged the AppDevCon (http://www.insidefacebook.com/2007/08/15/live-from-appdevcon...) and @ 3:23 PM, they quote Naval Ravikant from Hitforge as saying "The value of a Facebook user is going up - at first users were being sold for $0.10, now it's $0.60-$0.70. TripAdvisor just bought Where I've Been for $1.50/user."

There's no indication that anyone who was there was shocked or surprised at this statement. Instead, it seemed like it was presented rather matter-of-factly, like it was common knowledge.

When I heard the $3mm figure, I immediately started questioning it. That much money for something that can't be monetized that easily is just silly. Sure, that app owner has amassed all these users but these users are not his! He has no relationship with them so the value that he's trying to sell is heavily discounted.

This is so weird... To whose advantage is it to lie about this so blatantly?

Some possibilities (Edited):

- Facebook lied, which would benefit them if the lie wasn't exposed since it would give people more incentive to develop Facebook applications. Except it would be silly for Facebook to start random applications like "Where I've Been" and hope that one catches on so that they can lie. So, as the comment below says, this possibility is out.

- Someone else lied hoping it would catch on and make Facebook look bad.

- Someone for no reason started the rumor that Craig was bought when in reality he wasn't, and insideFB picked up the story.

- insideFB lied about it for the sole purpose of gaining traffic to its site.

I hope Craig settles the issue soon.

How is FBSecrets the same as FB? To me it just seems to be some blog that is cashing in on the FB brand. I don't think Mark or Facebook has anything to do with this.

You've confused issues :) There was the Facebook source code leak, which is what you're talking about, then this.

You are right :)... Too many blogs about FB! I meant to say insideFB, but typed FBsecrets instead... but its the same argument. Neither of these is owned by FB so its not Mark or FB lying.

I totally agree. I was just examining one possibility, however remote, so it could be discounted. So it's not Facebook.

I don't understand why someone would make something popular and then lie about its acquisition though.. Which means I've spun a big old circle back to far33d's original question.

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