lubricus writes "Facebook announced plans to acquire WhatsApp for four billion cash, plus 12 billion in Facebook shares.
Additionally, WhatsApp employees and founders will receive three billion in restricted stock which will vest in four years. Facebook also agreed to a one billion dollar break up fee.
WhatsApp says they have message volume which approaches the global SMS volume, and hope to have one billion users. Even at those figures, Facebook is paying $16 per user.
I'm guessing WhatsApp will send Snapchat developers a cake."
(Score: 4, Insightful) by inasity_rules on Thursday February 20 2014, @12:29PM
It is more subtly evil than that. Facebook don't want to "buy" the internet. They want to become the internet. Buying random companies is just a small part of the long term goal.
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
(Score: 1) by Common Joe on Friday February 21 2014, @10:10AM
That's not a bad idea. Worked well for AOL and Compuserv. History will repeat itself...