S&P 500
7,615.40
-0.09%
Dow Jones
51,329.00
-0.08%
Nasdaq 100
30,646.40
-0.23%
Russell 2000
2,930.28
-0.10%
FTSE 100
10,374.60
-0.13%
Nikkei 225
68,514.20
+1.50%

Investing

Market Puzzled By Facebook Buyout Of Instagram

Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

Invalid Image
Facebook is rich and has money to burn. Why not spend it on odd acquisitions?

The fight over the questionable value of social networks, fueled by the upcoming IPO of Facebook, got a boost as Facebook made a billion dollar acquisition. The company it bought–Instagram– is a maker of a popular photo-sharing app for mobile phones. It seems a number of other products do the same thing. Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone is set up to accommodate similar features.

But, Facebook has been sharply criticized for its lack of a model to make money on mobile devices. Some experts believe this trouble argues against a $100 billion value for the company which has 900 million users around the world. Other online firms, led by Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), make significant amounts of money with their smartphone applications. Even if Facebook wants to gain ground in the portable device business, $1 billion is a huge amount to spend for a firm which has 30 million users and next to no sales.

Follow 24/7 Wall St. on Google
Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

Continue Reading

Douglas A. McIntyre |

What’s Important in the Financial World (4/10/2012) Sony Loses More Money, Northeast Refineries Shut

The Sony (NYSE: SNE) train wreck continues. The Japanese company has appointed a new CEO and will fire 10,000 workers.…

Douglas A. McIntyre |

Google’s Mergers and Acquisition Machine: Another Win with Waze Deal at $1.3 Billion

courtesy of Google Inc.The mergers and acquisitions process at Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) cannot be measured against those of most…

247sam |

The 10 Websites Where Americans Spend the Most Time

ThinkstockThough the Internet is made up of tens of millions of websites, people spend the vast majority of time on…

Paul Ausick |

Google and Facebook Dominate Mobile Apps

ThinkstockMobile device users spent two hours and 42 minutes of their time on those devices in March, up just 2.5%…

Jon C. Ogg |

The Impending Groupon IPO

Groupon has become rather well known for its web ads calling for local discounts for those who join.  A possible…

4 Analyst Stock Picks for the Technology Changing the World
Lee Jackson |

4 Analyst Stock Picks for the Technology Changing the World

These four incredible tech companies all have high participation rates in the coming virtual, augmented and mixed reality landslide.

Douglas A. McIntyre |

What’s New in the Financial World (10/4/2012)

Macau Gambling Revenue Macau gambling revenue came in short of expectations. Macau has become the Mecca of gaming firms as…

Paul Ausick |

Online Sales Rose 10% in Fourth Quarter

While we wait for next week's report on same-store sales from some of the country's chain stores, we can chew…

Facebook Market Value Up $40 Billion in Q1
Douglas A. McIntyre |

Facebook Market Value Up $40 Billion in Q1

Facebook's market cap rose $40 billion to $340 billion during the first quarter as investor sentiment moved sharply in the…

Top Gaining Stocks

Hewlett Packard Enterprise
HPE • Vol: 153,197,465
Enphase Energy
ENPH • Vol: 8,360,053
Corning
GLW • Vol: 18,152,646
Alexandria Real Estate Equities
ARE • Vol: 4,337,015
Aptiv
APTV • Vol: 6,761,325

Top Losing Stocks

Trade Desk
TTD • Vol: 21,905,513
Intuit
INTU • Vol: 7,383,018
Coterra Energy
CTRA • Vol: 73,319,495
Cboe Global Markets
CBOE • Vol: 5,000,011
HP
HPQ • Vol: 29,259,826