Rumors are being spread (by Rafat Ali and Susan Mernit) that NBC is buying social networking site Tribe.net. Ali estimates the sale at $50 million or less and says that the media company will use Tribe to power the low-tech women’s networking site iVillage, which it acquired earlier this year for $600 million.
Update: ClickZ story now un-confirms the above, reporting that the deal is in fact not complete and the likely price is far lower than Ali’s guess. See comments below for more.
Tribe received funding from the Washington Post and Knight Ridder earlier this year. Critics allege that its user base has failed to grow substantially beyond its San Francisco core.
It seems a bit of a strange move to me, but I suppose when you’re NBC it couldn’t hurt to throw some pocket change at an established technology and focus on integrating it rather than taking the time to build your own. Goodness knows a media company can’t be without a social networking site or two these days! Good for Tribe getting some money before this kind of technology hits absolute commodity status. Great scoop by Valleywag on this last week.
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yeah that was a good scope by valleywag..
any idea on the implications w/ youtube ?? Will this change the way NBS is positioning itself in the market player
Tribe has been nearly stagnant in terms of reach, appeal, and functionality for a while…I imagine that NBC is buying the platform and the engineers more so than a social networking destination. It’ll be interesting to see how they deploy it.
I think this is a weak bid for NBC to get into the ’social network area’ and stay on par with the other networks. They are simply copying FOX, which provides the necessary justification.
Tribe is not a leading social network and has a huge uphill battle to become one. I think a better acquisition would be hi5, Xanga, or even Friendster, simply due to their size and reach. Facebook would be even more ideal, but their asking price is ridiculous.
I think this area is played out and the valuations are way too high. A more niche approach may decrease reach, but more than likely provide a better ROI.
Aidan Henry
My scoop was here, and an expert explained NBC’s motive here.
To quote a friend who knows, “premature”.
Another remashed story with no credit given…
http://mashable.com/2006/07/07.....ing-tribe/
Jimmy, feel free to add that link in comments, but it wasn’t mashable that i learned about this from.
I have not looked at Tribe in some time. But now that I looked at it I think the site usership has shrunk even more. I could be wrong on this. Alexa numbers are very impressive.
Does anyone know how well the other NBC sites are doing? If the deal-size is small, it may be a good thing for NBC, becuase they probably can entice audience from thier other site, iVillage, and TV to start using social networking.
I like the YouTube move, but pretty late to the game.
When did they implement a site re design? I guess it has been a long time since I have been on tribe.
ClickZ reports that a source inside NBC Universal describes the price, of either the company as a whole or Tribe.net’s back-end technology infrastructure, at “well under $5 million”. Your suggested “$50 million” price tag is grossly overstated. Perhaps that’s what a more popular site such as TagWorld or Tagged might sell for, but a has-been like Tribe.net, no way. I tend to believe Tribe.net will sell for $5 million or less.
The report (http://www.clickz.com/news/article.php/3618661) also suggests it’s far from a done deal. NBC Universal is only conducting its due diligence, as backed up by your above linked Valleywag story. It may well decide to take a pass, move on, and find the next social networking fish about to lay dead on the information superhighway, rotting in the hot summer’s sun.
Cheers,
Doug
CAVEMAN ZOG SUSPECT HEADS ROLL OVER THIS, SIX MONTHS. CAVEMAN ZOG THINK OLD MEDIA DESPERATE. OLD MEDIA SHOULD STICK TO WHEEL, LEAVE FIRE TO PROFESSIONALS.
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