America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998)

Re:America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Mill... by ggreenbe on Friday February 21, 2014 @07:46PM (#7280458)

I'm not sure that's a fair comparison to make. Most of their revenue comes after the first year. With the growth they had last year and current growth, their revenue should exponentially rise over 2014 and 2015.

Also, I wonder if being bought by facebook could help reduce hardware costs by utilizing facebook's infustracture

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Re:America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Mill... by chavesn on Friday February 21, 2014 @08:19PM (#7280551)

> With the growth they had last year and current growth, their revenue should exponentially rise over 2014 and 2015.

You're assuming:

A) Their growth stays the same as it is now.

B) Users on year-long free trials will convert to paying users.

These are crazy assumptions absent years worth of data.

Not saying WhatsApp doesn't have something good going, but in what world have either of the above things ever been predictable in this short of time?

Especially to validate the claim "revenue should exponentially rise"...?

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Re:America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Mill... by russell_h on Friday February 21, 2014 @08:29PM (#7280581)

I don't think it matters that much. Does anyone think that Facebook acquired WhatsApp for their revenue?

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Re:America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Mill... by thrush on Friday February 21, 2014 @08:15PM (#7280539)

You might be right about reduced infrastructure costs, but remember that Revenue is incoming cash before costs like infrastructure and other overhead.

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