Facebook in talks to buy browser company Opera, says report

Opera

(CNET) Is Facebook planning to jump on the browser bandwagon?

Tech blog Pocket-lint says one of its "trusted sources" revealed that Facebook is trying to buy Opera Software, the company behind the Opera Web browser, a sign that the social-networking company might be looking to launch its own browser.

The move would put Facebook in competition with other tech companies in the browser game -- including Yahoo, which recently launched Axis, and Google, which has already released extensions to integrate its social-networking component, Google +, into its browser.

Pocket-lint speculates that a Facebook browser "would allow you keep up to date with your social life from in-built plug-ins and features on the menu bar."

Facebook knows it isn't monetizing its mobile users though advertising, so it has been using its IPO money to make several acquisitions in an attempt to address its weak mobile strategy.

The Next Web's sources say that Opera is in a hiring freeze and talking to potential buyers. The company reports about 200 million users across all of its platforms.

Facebook has declined to comment.

This article first appeared at CNET.

[Dreadnut]

If Opera becomes loaded with plug-ins and extraneous menu bars, I'll unfriend it faster than you can say "IPO"

[hypnotoad72]

If Facebook isn't bringing in money via advertising, that means two things:

1. There's no money in advertising there so why do it
2. Where did facebook make its money BEFORE going IPO?

http://www.southernstudies.org/2012/02/facebooks-dubious-social-mission.html

Lastly, is Facebook so lazy they would rather buy one platform than to make a simple plug-in for free competing standards? (More proof "free market" is a wheelbarrow full of cow...)