Congratulations to the Karma team. I was the founding CTO of a competitor, Giftly, have thought about/worked on the space a great deal, and have been really impressed with what y'all have built. You deserve it.
I saw the headline and thought it would be about how Morgan Stanley was propping up the Facebook IPO price.
Great acquisition for Facebook. People are wondering what kind of monetization strategies Facebook will use to make them worth their post-IPO valuation, and Karma is now one good example.
People spend a LOT of money on gifts.
Looks like FB is on acquisition spree. Instagram, Glancee and now Karma. Just in the space of one month. Are these (Glancee and Karma) people acquisitions?
Congratulations to Karma but is Facebook on a race with Google for the number of startups acquired this year?
I hope they're getting a mandate to build gifting / ecommerce transactions into a revenue stream for Facebook whatever way they can. Bring back Free Gifts / FB Gifts with a vengeance. One-click purchase of products advertised in the sidebar!
And congrats again Ben, Lee, and the whole Karma team. They're going to do great things with the resources of FB.
Lee is a really nice guy, and has multiple successful companies behind him. Seems like a great move on Facebook's part.
Big time pick up for Facebook. If they can manage to bring Facebook Credits mainstream then everyone watch out.
Ben & Lee are a great team, from parlaying the winnings of a business plan competition into a hit app (tap defense), to building a successful company around app marketing using their app to gain traction (tapjoy) and now karma. Can't wait to see what they do with Karma and what comes next!
Zuck seems keen to the Wallstreet fellows on the edge with Facebook's unpredictability.
How do you guys find out about new products and companies?
I had never heard of Glancee or Karma (among many others) before I read the news that they had both been acquired by Facebook.
Pretty interesting app and can see how Facebook could utilize the product. I wonder if we will see more of this consolidation in the market place as the big players buy up smaller ones.
When does facebook have to disclose how much they paid for it?
Looks like Facebook is using their new IPO money wisely.
This is interesting as it shows how Facebook may move away from pure advertising as a revenue stream on the mobile and more towards transactions.
Nice. I'm reminded of how often Facebook is how I know someone's birthday is coming up..,
Now this is a smart buy.
They had to do SOMETHING with that $16B
So. Facebook is ostensibly a "public" company except it's still more than 50% controlled by one man and now it has 18 billion dollars of cash to buy up potential competitors before they get big. Zuck has to be feeling pretty damned pleased with himself right about now.
Time to play with the monopoly money I guess. Karma sounds good on paper, but in reality, it is anything but useful. First, you have to buy an overpriced item from their catalogue. A $50 quart of ice cream or a $25 homemade candy bar are just two examples. Not novel at all. Second, if I’m going to spend that much on a gift, then they better be a close friend/family. No way I can afford to do ‘little’ events. Third, I have to pay shipping fees so the cost adds up pretty quick. And fourth, I can’t make this a group gift….have others chip in. The only social aspect is that the gifting is done through Facebook. Wow.
For the past few months, I’ve been using EventSmart (www.myeventsmart.com) which is really what social gifting should be. It’s free, the recipient can buy anything they want, and I can invite others to chip in. You can also contribute as little as $5 for anything. For example, recently a close friend’s son had several surgeries on a broken leg. I started a gift, chipped in some money and then invited some mutual friends who contributed as well. EventSmart collected the contributions and then let my friend’s son transfer the funds onto a gift card. He ended up buying some video games through Amazon. No fees. No overpriced items from a limited catalogue. Several people all contributed. Now that’s social gifting!
Karma is good marketing with no substance. Their mobile app is nice, but their offering is terrible. I’d never use their restrictive service for overpriced stuff. Hope Facebook didn’t pay that much, but when it’s monopoly money, maybe it doesn’t matter.
I'm pretty sure that Facebook is swiping up a number of these mobile-based companies so that when they get around to launching the Facebook Phone they will integrate these companies as the core services built into the phone itself. Think about it: Having a phone with the following services out of the box highly integrated with the Facebook platform:
1) Glancee -- Pretty much Google Latitude. See where your friends are around you built into your phone
2) Instagram -- Take amazing pictures with filters out of the gate built into your phone
3) Karma -- Get reminders about your friends' lives and events and send them gifts built into your phone
These aren't random BS talent-acquisitions (no disrespect). Facebook has something up its sleeve with mobile and I wouldn't be surprised if this was it.
FOR ONE BILLION DOLLARS!!!!!!!
lol
wow... this is how out of touch the wealthy are. No one at all in real life would ever use this idea. I don't want to say like 1%, but honestly this is a tool of a very very small portion of society. The scary part is that a very small portion of society decides if it gets the money to exist.
Strange title, strange post.
Like others I hijack this thread: there is someone, Zuckerberg himself or some trading bot (Goldman Sachs) is keeping the price above 38.00$ sharp.
Anybody else read this headline and wish they could buy karma too?
FYI, Karma's best mechanic is that you send a gift to a recipient without entering cc info; then when the recipient accepts, you become socially obligated to complete the payment process. It also asks the recipient for their address, so you only need to pick the item and enter their email (or FB select). It's generally a beautifully designed app.