>Latest news is that Microsoft wants to buy FaceBook. I don't remember how many billions it would cost them.
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>I don't get it. I'm not on FaceBook nor do I plan to be on it.
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>Why would it worth that much money? I mean it does'nt cost a thing to be a member of FaceBook right?
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>To me this is another one of those time wasters on the internet. Why would I want people I don't know know stuff about me. I simply don't get that frenzy over FaceBook.
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>Can anybody explain what's going on here? Apparently I don't get it and I'm wondering what's the big deal here.


Facebook is huge among those aged ~15-25. That is a demographic everyone wants to reach. We have a whole generation growing up with MySpace and Facebook as part of their daily lives. When you have that many people using a product that regularly, a lot of companies see dollar signs, even if Facebook hasn't turned a profit yet. It's hard to assess dot-coms in traditional financial terms. But nobody wants to miss the boat if they really are the New Big Thing. (Which they may in fact be).

For Microsoft's sake, I hope they execute this a lot better than they did the takeover attempt of Yahoo. That just made them look old and out of it -- exactly the image they are trying to combat in their battle with Google.