雅虎与Facebook谈判未取得太大进展
Yahoo's Talks With Facebook Get Bogged Down
Days after Google Inc. announced a $1.65 billion purchase of YouTube Inc., rival Yahoo Inc.'s efforts to extend its Web reach through an acquisition of Facebook Inc. aren't making much progress, say people familiar with the matter.
While discussions are continuing, no purchase of the closely held Facebook social-networking site is imminent, these people say. They say a deal is unlikely unless Yahoo increases its roughly $1 billion offer or changing business conditions made Facebook's management more inclined to sell.
Yahoo's failure to date to secure a deal for Facebook highlights the slower pace of its efforts to expand, following Mountain View, Calif.-based Google's swift agreement to purchase online video site YouTube, of San Bruno, Calif. Yahoo had recently held discussions with YouTube concerning an acquisition, according to people familiar with the matter.
Yahoo faces problems on other fronts: Last month it warned that slowing growth in Internet ad sales would hurt third-quarter revenue and earlier this year it announced a delay in the release of an upgrade to its advertising systems.
Facebook, based in Palo Alto, Calif., and created for college students in February 2004, allows users to create Web pages with their own profiles and musings, look for friends and send messages to each other. The site had 13.3 million U.S. visitors in September, down from 14.8 million in August, according to research firm comScore Networks Inc.
A Facebook acquisition would give Yahoo a flagship property in the social-networking area, further extending its reach to younger users coveted by advertisers. Last year, media giant News Corp. bought social-networking site MySpace for $650 million. "Yahoo needs to skew younger in its audience for future growth over the next five years," says Jeetil Patel, a Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. analyst.
A Yahoo spokesman said the Sunnyvale, Calif., company would "do deals that we believe make sound strategic and financial sense." A Facebook spokeswoman declined to comment.
The discussions between Yahoo and Facebook, reported last month by The Wall Street Journal, have continued on and off for much of this year, according to people familiar with the matter. These people say the two sides came close to a deal in July.
Yahoo at the time lowered its roughly $1 billion offer for Facebook to closer to $800 million after Yahoo's stock fell sharply on news of the delay to its ad system upgrade and a new batch of traffic numbers for Facebook indicated the site wasn't growing as quickly as Yahoo had expected.
The two companies have had discussions since, with Yahoo's valuation for Facebook again in the range of $1 billion, say people familiar with the matter. Facebook isn't considering any rival offers at the moment, says one of the people, but "there's not a tremendous desire on either side" to get a deal done.
Facebook's business picked up over the past month after the introduction of some new features on its site, making the company more confident about its prospects, say some of the people familiar with the matter. Google's deal for YouTube also indicates a robust mergers-and-acquisition climate for Internet companies that could broaden Facebook's options, these people say.
These factors reduce the incentives for Facebook's management, which includes founder and Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg, 22 years old, to sell the company now. In an interview last month, Mr. Zuckerberg said there was no sense in saying, "let's make a lot of money now....I can be doing this for a long time, hopefully."
雅虎与Facebook谈判未取得太大进展
一些知情人士透露，雅虎公司(Yahoo! Inc.)为收购Facebook Inc.以扩展其网络搜索业务而付出的努力未取得太大进展。而在数日前，其竞争对手谷歌(Google Inc.)宣布以16.5亿美元收购YouTube Inc.。
上述知情人士还透露，尽管谈判仍在继续，但近期内不会达成有关收购社交活动网站Facebook.com的协议。他们还表示，除非雅虎将其开出的约10亿美元的收购价格提高，或是改变商业条件以令Facebook管理层动心，否则这笔交易将以失败告终。
至今为止，雅虎仍未达成对Facebook的相关收购协议，这集中反映出雅虎的扩张速度不及谷歌，谷歌不久前签署协议，收购了在线视频网站YouTube。另据知情人士透露，雅虎此前也曾就收购YouTube事宜与其进行过谈判。
Kevin J. Delaney / Rebecca Buckman
