Companies Compete Over Facebook

If time is money, students spend more on Facebook.com than on their education.

So it’s no surprise that Microsoft is reported to be considering buying a stake of up to 5 percent in the popular social networking site.

The deal, which was first reported on The Wall Street Journal Web site on Monday, would be worth $300 to $500 million and would value Facebook at $10 billion or more.

This projected value is more than 10 times the amount Yahoo! reportedly offered a year ago for the company founded by Mark E. Zuckerberg, a former member of the Class of 2006.

Two experts attributed the growth in value to the applications platform made available on the site in the past year.

“You can do everything from throwing food at your friends to playing chess with them,” said Charlene H. Li ’88, principal analyst at Forrester Research, Inc. “Within the college environment, like at Harvard, it’s very easy to be able to translate the things that you do and take them online into Facebook.”

She added that she believes a deal would be highly beneficial for Facebook, and that the additional cash would allow the site to expand in preparation for an initial public offering.

Meanwhile, Microsoft could use the Web site to extend their online advertising, she said.

But Microsoft Watch Editor Joe Wilcox urged caution against equating the huge potential of Facebook’s applications platform with actual monetary value.

“These things are somewhat arbitrary. They’re based on a lot of intangibles,” he said.

Representatives for Microsoft and Facebook both declined to comment.

Some students expressed a lack of enthusiasm about the proposal.

“Facebook has always been a program for students by students. Giving a piece of it to a highly corporate company that has a long history of intellectual property issues is a bit sketchy,” said Remen E. Okoruwa ’11.

“Microsoft generally has a feeling of being greasy all over,” he added.

“Facebook is really going to have to hold on to its audience,” Wilcox said.

One student said she believed that a deal would not chase students away.

“Because Facebook is pretty entrenched in the way college students interact, most people probably will stay on Facebook,” said Abigail E. Schiff ’11.