« Previous post
Next post »

March 2, 2007

Tribe Gets Acquired, For Real This Time

Michael Arrington

44 comments »

Last year was a turbulent one for Silicon Valley based Tribe.net. Founding CEO Mark Pincus was ousted, in April 2005 and then returned in August 2006. While Pincus was gone rumors swirled that the company had been acquired by NBC, but the deal was never consummated.

But now the New York Times is reporting that the assets of the eight person company have been acquired by Cisco. This follows their acquisition of Five Across, a social networking infrastructure service, two weeks ago. The hope is to use the two company’s technology to help Cisco’s corporate clients build their own social networks, so it isn’t clear whether or not the Tribe service itself will live on.

The price of the Tribe deal hasn’t been disclosed, but usually these things leak within a few days.

The demand is clearly there, as seen by Reuters’ announcement today that they’re looking to build their own Myspace clone, for financial types. Everyone, it seems, wants their very own social network these days.

Cisco is now a player in the social networking space. That certainly wasn’t in anyone’s predictions for 2007. And there are bound to be a few snickers around the valley as Cisco dips its toes in this new business.

Marc Andreessen, the founder of Ning (which just upgraded its build-it-yourself social network platform), had a great sound bite on this topic in the NYT article. He said “The idea that Cisco is going to be a force in social networking is about as plausible as Ning being a force in optical switches.”

  • Sphere It

This entry was posted on Friday, March 2nd, 2007 at 11:32 pm and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Trackbacks/Pings (Trackback URL)

  1. Simplicity Works Everytime

    March 3rd, 2007 at 11:25 am

  2. Tips Dr.com

    March 3rd, 2007 at 5:10 pm

  3. Michi Knows

    March 5th, 2007 at 6:10 am

  4. pureweb20.com

    March 5th, 2007 at 9:11 am

  5. 360Digest » Lessons from the tribe

    October 1st, 2007 at 12:12 am

  6. Connection Commons DOT org » Blog Archive » Where my “head is at” - Links I Found of Interest out of ~9000

    October 4th, 2007 at 11:47 am

Comments

RSS feed for comments on this post.

  1. Rookie

    March 2nd, 2007 at 11:46 pm

    Wow, congratulations to the tribe.net team.

  2. Bob

    March 3rd, 2007 at 12:29 am

    marca sums it up in the article: “The idea that Cisco is going to be a force in social networking is about as plausible as Ning being a force in optical switches.”

  3. jonesy

    March 3rd, 2007 at 12:37 am

    as strange as it gets. I understand also that Apple is about t acquire the assets of Betty Crocker so they get have a better undertanding of getting into the toaster business

  4. Etherfast

    March 3rd, 2007 at 12:52 am

    The price of the deal should be disclosed;)

  5. Alaska Miller

    March 3rd, 2007 at 1:09 am

    some cisco exec just wanted tribes to troll through the list for kinky frisco women to have as mistresses.

  6. Drama 2.0

    March 3rd, 2007 at 1:24 am

    Isn’t it a bit premature to congratulate on a “liquidity event” here? Didn’t Tribe.net raise more than $10 million over several rounds? If my recollection on this is correct, it’d be interesting to know what the valuation they got on their last round was as I can’t imagine this deal being valued at more than the type of funding would probably entail, let alone even $10 million.

    Anybody want to invest $20 million in my new social network? I bet I can sell it for $5 million and even though you’ll lose money, I’ll have achieved a “liquidity event” that I can put on my resume! Perhaps this should be more accurately described as a “liquidation event.”

  7. Santosh

    March 3rd, 2007 at 2:53 am

    Which division in Cisco was behind the acquisition?

    - Santosh

  8. Correction

    March 3rd, 2007 at 3:42 am

    Marc was ousted in Apr 05 not Apr 06

  9. Oh I know

    March 3rd, 2007 at 3:48 am

    Santosh…

    I beleive it was the.His Imperial Manjesty, CEO Dreams: Millions of people surrounded with tasty ad candy…devision. ;P

  10. Paul Montgomery

    March 3rd, 2007 at 4:40 am

    Geez I dunno, I have faith that Marc A could give Cisco a run for its money. How hard can making optical switches be?

  11. Jarid

    March 3rd, 2007 at 6:07 am

    This seems more like Cisco’s efforts to attack IBM’s social networking for the enterprise plans (Lotus Connections).

  12. isibingo

    March 3rd, 2007 at 6:46 am

    it ll be ok for cisco to get into social network but opposite for ning to get into making optical switches .

    Techmambo is a weblog dedicated to profiling and reviewing new Online and Offline products, services and companies.

  13. bdb

    March 3rd, 2007 at 7:08 am

    Well, it’s not as if Cisco wants to own and operate the next myspace, they will provide this as a service. Mr. Andreessen (and the rest of ning) should be concerned, and it is not surprising that he would make such a comment. At least at this point, their target markets are different, but that could change. This could certainly inhibit ning’s ability to grow.

  14. victor

    March 3rd, 2007 at 7:41 am

    Perhaps a twist to the old adage applies here for Cisco:

    ‘Tribe goeth before a fall’

  15. Apostrophe Police

    March 3rd, 2007 at 7:48 am

    You dolt! In the phrase “The hope is to use the two company’s technology” you are referring to the technology of two companies - possessive plural. Therefore the correct way to spell this in English is “The hope is to use the two companies’ technology.” Further, each company has their own technology and so what I think you really meant was “The hope is to use the two companies’ technologies.” Or, to write in a more active and interesting style, you could write “Cisco hopes to use the two companies’ technologies.” If you’re going to pretend to be a journalist, at least learn to use the English language.

  16. Graeme Thickins

    March 3rd, 2007 at 8:06 am

    wow, I guess apostrophe man got up on the wrong side of his Funk and Wagnalls this morning…

  17. lonelybloggers

    March 3rd, 2007 at 8:28 am

    LOL Alaska

    Wonder if Cisco employees will be able to surf Tribe during work hours or if it’s banned… Funny stuff

  18. Scott Schiller

    March 3rd, 2007 at 9:19 am

    Joining the apostrophe police (#15), the page title should read “acquired”, not “aquired.”

  19. sam

    March 3rd, 2007 at 9:55 am

    ok….

    enough with the punctuation police!!! you’re the same guys who use the phrases — ‘hw r u’!!

    anyway, on a more serious note. my gut is that marc.a has got this one wrong. cisco wasn’t thought of as being a player in the home.. until they got linksys…

    in a similar manner, cisco wasn’t thought of as being an entitiy to turn to in order to facilitate corporate communications/processes, until they’ve purchased the companies that they have.

    now, if i were a CIO/Communications Mgr, who do I want to potentially deal with. A businesses class solution from a company that’s a fortune 500, or a pure startup… hmmm…

    The fact that IBM is in this game, and the fact that Cisco is playing at the edges gives this whole area a lot of legitimacy. All things being equal, as a coporation, I’m going to initially give the larger companies the look.

    Now, it is possible that Ning, and others will be able to implement/innovate around what IBM/Cisco offerings can provide… The jury is out on this issue.

    So, we’ll see….

    ps. Even if Ning is superior… where’s the sale mechanism to drive the revenue… Cisco has a sales force that knows how to sell. For now, all Ning has is a strategy, of we’ll build it, create partnerships, and hope that others can sell… We’ll see.. it’ll be interesting…

    peace..

  20. Oh I know

    March 3rd, 2007 at 10:50 am

    rofl…he’s that same guy, yup, I knew it…hahahahahaha.

  21. Nimish Batra

    March 3rd, 2007 at 11:01 am

    But but but…

    Isn’t Cisco one of the *very* few cmopanies that have been successful with the whole buyout-and-integrate routine?

    Sam rightly pointed out Linksys. There are other examples too (I bet I could remember them if I’d cared to read about Cisco in the last few years :( ).

    “it’ll be interesting”

  22. adrian chan

    March 3rd, 2007 at 11:24 am

    Seems the wild west has a new frontier tale to tell today, one about how the cisco kid gathered up the tribe and rode into the (silicon) valley, five across and lord knows how many deep, all manner of whoops and hollers piercing the pregnant air, gold in them thar hills, a whipping post and minions predisposed to bdsm and fire dancing on the open flats by nightfall….and the age-old struggle to domesticate the tribes rises up at high noon as the cisco sherriff makes steps into the cantina… can the tribe be civilized? will they settle? is this a new home or a hollywood set rigged and ready for showtime? there’s talk in the tribes and the whipping post sweats and communal bondage, or is it bonding, waits to meet the law… switch on, switch off, or switch sides….

  23. pwb

    March 3rd, 2007 at 12:18 pm

    Add move that won’t go anywhere but I doubt more than a rounding error on CSCO daily revs.

  24. Andrew

    March 3rd, 2007 at 1:12 pm

    How will this effect the current tribe community?

  25. David H. Deans

    March 3rd, 2007 at 1:33 pm

    With all due respect to Marc Andreessen, I agree with other comments that it’s possible for Cisco to evolve. Some thought it was odd for Cisco to be in cable TV infrastructure, products and services business (aka Scientific Atlanta).

    It’s conceivable that Cisco’s enterprise customers would consider Five Across for internal communities of interest, behind the corporate firewall. Tribe could be applied by the cable MSOs or even Telcos to help them develop consumer communities, like a SaaS business model.

    Cisco intends to be a force in consumer electronics, which was the focal point of their “Human Network” vision demonstrated at this year’s CES in Las Vegas.

  26. tr101

    March 3rd, 2007 at 3:21 pm

    “The idea that Cisco is going to be a force in social networking is about as plausible as Ning being a force in optical switches.”

    Andressesn is so full of it.

    Cisco is a leader in optical switches. Ning is a NOBODY in social networking. Making that statement assumes that Ning is at least a player when it hasn’t gotten any traction in anything as of yet.

    Nevertheless Gina (the CEO) is hot tho. Maybe that will count for something…. LOL

  27. Adam Healey

    March 3rd, 2007 at 4:40 pm

    A fundamental difference between Ning and Cisco’s activities in this space will be dictated by their respective business models.

    According to Ning’s web site, “When you create your free social network on Ning, we run ads on the right hand side of every page to support the service. That’s our main source of income.”

    So Ning makes the bulk of its revenues via Adsense. As click-through rates are largely out of their control, the key driver they are focused on is maximizing users * average page views. They want to serve up their platform to as many social networks as possible. That’s why I can set up a ning social network in like ten seconds for free.

    Cisco on the other hand has a built-in install base of thousands of wealthy corporate clients. These clients we can assume are interested in very different things - either creating branded social networks for their customers or launching internal social networks for their own organizations and supply chains.

    Either way, they’re not going to want Google’s text ads running down the right-hand side of their web pages. Thus I would imagine that Cisco will look to set up their social network product line as a recurring revenue service, and they’ll want to enable high levels of customization, security, and client control. Their ultimate product won’t even resemble or compete with the likes of Ning. It’s unlikely that if Boeing wants a social network that they are going to plop down $10 a month to get Ning’s corporate package. They will want something industrial strength, and thus turn to John Chambers and Cisco, who is already selling them their internet infrastructure hardware.

    Does Boeing build their web site using Front Page? No, they hire their advertising agency, who then outsources it to Razorfish and marks it up 200%. Likewise, they don’t buy Ning. They buy Cisco Social Networks.

    PS - Gina, call me. We’ll have lunch. ;-)

  28. The Famous Guy.Com

    March 3rd, 2007 at 4:50 pm

    The price must have been right. http://www.thefamousguy.com

  29. David Mackey

    March 3rd, 2007 at 7:56 pm

    Hmmm…I think we are going to need an OpenID for social networks. I don’t mean support for, but an open standard similar to OpenID. This is getting ridiculous. There are way too many social networks one has to keep tabs on, and while there are now services that manage integrating with these various services - there isn’t anything that can really provide the integration needed.

  30. Pavel Senko

    March 3rd, 2007 at 10:07 pm

    That was expected. Cisco is positioning itself as a “Human Network”. So, it was not in question.

    My take is: Cisco approaching into social networking market with Web 3.0 idea of integrating everything: voice, data, entertainment, home video, blogging, personal identity, etc.

  31. Jeff Crites

    March 3rd, 2007 at 11:46 pm

    I wouldn’t bet against Cisco. Companies are just starting to recognize the value of tapping their customers for creative insight to improve products and services. Cisco will probably use Tribe and Five Across to offer business clients a platform to connect to and interact with consumers. Think Dell’s IdeaStorm site (crowdsourcing), or Idea Crossing (crowdcasting).

    Cisco offers products that enable communication. Instead of backbone hardware … looks like software this time. They don’t have to be trendy or cool to pull it off. Just offer a robust, easy to use community platform that any company can incorporate into its website.

  32. tr101

    March 4th, 2007 at 1:09 am

    Cisco’s “Human Network” ads a sooooooooo annoying.

  33. Thomas Barker

    March 4th, 2007 at 11:52 am

    Any deal is right at the right price. A dignified exit for Tribe would be pocket change to Cisco. If all Cisco get is top flight team to build a social site for their contractors and supplier, that could be worth $20m to them if it has to be done fast. Having tried to just find s/ware patches on cisco.com, I can certainly say they’re in need of some web help!

    Jeff the important things that IdeaStorm or IdeaCrossing having in common is that I haven’t heard about them, and neither has anyone else! (I could be proved wrong later, but …)

    DaveM: I completely agree - I did some university work on this back before it was trendy :-) SNS should really be like email - a generic standard that’s built into other applications. It’s only then that the really interesting applications like ripple become possible. Even being able to do things like opening a Flickr album only to people with an OpenID from a certain URIs [e.g. openid.facebook.com/myuni/*] would be a start.

    We had the man responsible for tribe’s no h/core p0rn policy in our office at Zopa last week. He took a lot of hate for that. I hope Cisco know that they’re getting into ;-)

  34. five_whys

    March 4th, 2007 at 12:27 pm

    agree with Jeff Crites and Pavel Senko.. I even think this is just a begining, Cisco may acquire lot more smaller companies or one or two big companies this year.

  35. danny

    March 4th, 2007 at 2:05 pm

    Cisco doesn’t merit snickers. It knows what it’s doing. My full thoughts here:
    http://www.deluzions.com/20070.....s-not-dumb

  36. Alex

    March 4th, 2007 at 10:18 pm

    What’s the price?

  37. trevo

    March 5th, 2007 at 2:06 pm

    @36 Valleywag pegs it at “less than 3M”.

  38. Steven

    March 17th, 2007 at 11:47 pm

    The site is really slow right now, especially with the player constantly trying to load itself.
    http://www.artdownload.net

« Previous post
Next post »