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A comment on America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Million (1998). Parent comment

Re:America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Mill... by corresation on Friday February 21, 2014 @10:26PM (#7280877)
"What would be much smarter is using your own engineers to build that next disruption"

Could they, though? Facebook's DNA is information accumulation. As is Google's.

WhatsApp is the antithesis of this, and the likely outcome of this acquisition is the gradual decline of the product as people flock to whatever new, unburdened, anonymous replacement comes along.

But for a while it will boost the stock price because it keeps user engagement seemingly high.

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Re:America Online to Buy Internet Chat Service for $287 Mill... by coldtea on Saturday February 22, 2014 @10:41PM (#7284834)
>Could they, though? Facebook's DNA is information accumulation. As is Google's.

I don't think companies have DNAs. Just idiotic managers who don't give enough freedom to teams to work outside the company's box.

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