Sure, sounds worth at least $3 billion in cash to me.
In the tech-frenzied world of today — roughly a week after Twitter's resounding IPO and a few months after Yahoo showered $1 billion on blogging platform Tumblr — anything seems possible.
NEWS: Report -- Snapchat turned down $3B offer from Facebook
Even, improbably, photo-messaging service Snapchat's spurning Facebook's acquisition bid, according to a report confirmed by USA TODAY. The Wall Street Journal reported Snapchat nixed an earlier $1 billion offer from Facebook last year. (Snapchat may be holding out for a better deal from another company, too, according to the Journal report.)
TALKING TECH: Snapchat's young audience fuels a growth streak
Incredulity aside, Facebook sees the future of social networking, and it is in pictures. Lots of them. That's why it dangled an all-cash offer for 2-year-old Snapchat — its largest acquisition bid, dwarfing the $1 billion it plunked on photo-sharing app Instagram last year.
The photo fixation is simple: Facebook last month admitted younger members are using the network less. Many of them are flocking to sites like Snapchat, which lets people exchange photos and videos that disappear a few seconds after being viewed, leaving little digital footprint for parents and teachers to see.
Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel appears to be sitting on a rocket. The site zoomed to 350 million monthly members in September from 200 million in June.
Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, whose other company, Square, is rumored to be racing to an IPO next year, cited Snapchat as one of the startups that excite him during a discussion with USA TODAY in New York in September.
I wonder if Jack could imagine such an offer. Then again, these days almost anything seems possible in tech.
Follow Jon Swartz on Twitter: @jswartz.
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