The RSS Blog

News and commentary from the RSS and OPML community.

Staci D. Karmer: Because of the other, unidentified company's serious interest, Viacom made a non-binding offer to get to the next step -- due diligence. That offer was at or about $20 million -- already a deep discount from the $50-100 million being tossed about late last year, which was already a deep discount from the $200 million ballpark that cropped up in early 2005. [cut] I have been told by multiple sources that later Viacom was offered the chance to acquire Friendster for $5 million -- less than the $11 million to $15 million we estimated last year so far had been invested in the company. The word Viacom got was that Friendster's VCs no longer wanted to fund the company. [cut] (Friendster's lead backers are Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Battery Ventures and Benchmark Capital, each of which has seats on the board.) When I asked one person familiar with the situation why not just buy it for that price, the response was it costs more than that a year to operate.

http://www.paidcontent.org/pc/arch/2006_01_11.shtml#053107

Randy: I can't wait to read the book; The Rise and Fall of Friendster. Sounds like a best seller.

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