Analysis: Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer Says Facebook Might Be “A Fad”

Authored by Jay Baage on October 2, 2007 - 2:16pm.

This is interesting - Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is quoted in TimesOnline saying that he believes the craze for individual social networks such as Facebook risks being exposed as a “fad." Either he is trying to put pressure on Facebook (Microsoft is negotiating to buy a 5% stake in the company according to rumors) or it is just another Ballmer foot-in-mouth classic.

The quote in TimesOnline reads as follows:
“I think these things [social networks] are going to have some legs, and yet there’s a faddishness, a faddish nature about anything that basically appeals to younger people”.

What? Anything that appeals to young people is a fad? Like the Internet and Video Games? Either he is misquoted, expressing himself badly or just simply out of touch with reality.

Microsoft is reportedly in talks to pay as much as $500 million for a 5 per cent stake in Facebook - that’s a lot to pay for “a fad!" Especially considering that’s roughly how much News Corp. paid for all of MySpace.

Again, Microsoft is late in the game and playing catch-up in the social networking space, as well as they are in the digital music space with their Zune player and marketplace.

Perhaps it is just Ballmer not getting it. I’ve published a clip before when he laughs off the importance of the iPhone for the mobile phone market and digital music. Sure, Apple had to lower the price and AT&T might suck, but still. With social networking, once again, it seems to me that Ballmer is on the defensive for being late in the game.

Joakim Baage

Poll: Do you agree with Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer that Facebook risks being 'a fad'?

Flickr Image By CDernbach