iLike Deal Puts Facebook In Lose/Lose Situation
August 17, 2009 at 16:35 PM EDT
As more details emerge about the MySpace-iLike acquisition , all sorts of interesting observations and questions pop up. A few thoughts: The Facebook Angle This is by far the most interesting angle to the deal. iLike is the most popular music application on Facebook, and is the de facto Facebook Music app . That company will shortly be owned by MySpace, Facebook's primary competitor. That puts Facebook in a lose-lose situation. They can let iLike continue to dominate the music scene on Facebook and let MySpace own all that. Or they can ban iLike and lose all credibility with their platform - everyone would know iLike was banned because of the acquisition by MySpace. And it doesn't have to be an outright ban. Facebook has plenty of subtle ways of trainwrecking an application they don't like. Keep an eye on this. Why didn't Facebook just buy iLike? A matching or slightly better offer than the $20 million MySpace is paying would likely have gotten the deal done. And it may have saved Facebook from an embarrassing situation. If I were MySpace, I'd focus on getting their free streaming music into the iLike Facebook application as soon as possible. Advertisers will love it.