Boards.ie and Facebook

DeVore

Hey all,

re: www.faceboards.ie (go check it out!)

As part of a long drawn out process we have been working on for the last 6 weeks we are pleased to announce that Boards.ie has now been co-opted under the Facebook "Extended Family Project" initiative.

What this means is that all of our content is now accessible under the brand new domain of ... trumpets please... WWW.FACEBOARDS.IE as well as www.boards.ie. This allows us the freedom to develop ourselves in the way we see fit while still accessing the resources of the Facebook powerhouse of investment and knowledge.

Nothing will change as far as Moderators and Smods are concerned. The 51% mentioned below is made up in part by the shares held by Daft.ie which have transferred to Facebook. What can I say except, we welcome our new overlords! See below for the details of the deal.

---
Begin Press Release:

Facebook To Acquire 51% of Boards.ie for $2.65 million in Stock

Combination Will Create New Opportunities for Users and Content Owners Everywhere

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. 4pm, March 31st, 2009 - FaceBook Inc. (NASDAQ: FABK) announced today that it has agreed to acquire 51% of Boards.ie Ltd, the consumer media company for people to read and write original content through a Web experience, for $2.65 million in a stock-for-shares transaction. Following the acquisition, Boards.ie will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community.

The acquisition combines one of the largest and fastest growing online irish communities with Facebook's expertise in organizing information and creating new models for advertising on the Internet. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience for users interested in uploading, watching and sharing content, and will offer new opportunities for professional content owners to distribute their work to reach a passionate new audience.

"The Boards.ie Admin team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Facebook's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," said Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Officer of Facebook. "Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers."

"Our community has played a vital role in changing the way that people interact in Ireland," said Tom Murphy, one of the founders of Boards.ie. "I'm confident that with this partnership we'll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for serving irish society. Do you like my hat?"

When the acquisition is complete, Boards.ie will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Facebooks own fast-growing community business. Boards.ie will continue to be based in Dublin, Ireland, and all Boards.ie employees will remain with the company. With Facebook's technology, advertiser relationships and global reach, Boards.ie will continue to build on its success as one of the countries most popular websites.

The number of Facebook shares to be issued in the transaction will be determined based on the 30-day average closing price two trading days prior to the completion of the acquisition. Both companies have approved the transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2009.




DeV.

AlmightyCushion

They were offering $500m for twitter, a site where people keep others up to date with their bowel movements and what their cat tibbles had for breakfast and you settle for $2.65m. The mind boggles.

MIN2511

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

They were offering $500m for twitter, a site where people keep others up to date with their bowel movements and what their cat tibbles had for breakfast and you settle for $2.65m. The mind boggles.

Twitter is used worldwide
Boards is Irish

Raphael

That's fantastic, look forward to seeing where this takes us!

lostinsuperfunk

Congratulations.
Today's date will go down as a very special date in the calendar of Irish internet history.

AlmightyCushion

I actually really like the look of the new home page which is suprising given how many people hated the facebook redesign.

Gazza22

Nice

mikedragon32

DeVore wrote: »

Hey all,

re: www.faceboards.ie (go check it out!)

As part of a long drawn out process we have been working on for the last 6 weeks we are pleased to announce that Boards.ie has now been co-opted under the Facebook "Extended Family Project" initiative.

What this means is that all of our content is now accessible under the brand new domain of ... trumpets please... WWW.FACEBOARDS.IE as well as www.boards.ie. This allows us the freedom to develop ourselves in the way we see fit while still accessing the resources of the Facebook powerhouse of investment and knowledge.

Nothing will change as far as Moderators and Smods are concerned. The 51% mentioned below is made up in part by the shares held by Daft.ie which have transferred to Facebook. What can I say except, we welcome our new overlords! See below for the details of the deal.

---
Begin Press Release:

Facebook To Acquire 51% of Boards.ie for $2.65 million in Stock

Combination Will Create New Opportunities for Users and Content Owners Everywhere

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. 4pm, March 31st, 2009 - FaceBook Inc. (NASDAQ: FABK) announced today that it has agreed to acquire 51% of Boards.ie Ltd, the consumer media company for people to read and write original content through a Web experience, for $2.65 million in a stock-for-shares transaction. Following the acquisition, Boards.ie will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and passionate community.

The acquisition combines one of the largest and fastest growing online irish communities with Facebook's expertise in organizing information and creating new models for advertising on the Internet. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more comprehensive experience for users interested in uploading, watching and sharing content, and will offer new opportunities for professional content owners to distribute their work to reach a passionate new audience.

"The Boards.ie Admin team has built an exciting and powerful media platform that complements Facebook's mission to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful," said Mark Zuckerberg, Chief Executive Officer of Facebook. "Our companies share similar values; we both always put our users first and are committed to innovating to improve their experience. Together, we are natural partners to offer a compelling media entertainment service to users, content owners and advertisers."

"Our community has played a vital role in changing the way that people interact in Ireland," said Tom Murphy, one of the founders of Boards.ie. "I'm confident that with this partnership we'll have the flexibility and resources needed to pursue our goal of building the next-generation platform for serving irish society. Do you like my hat?"

When the acquisition is complete, Boards.ie will retain its distinct brand identity, strengthening and complementing Facebooks own fast-growing community business. Boards.ie will continue to be based in Dublin, Ireland, and all Boards.ie employees will remain with the company. With Facebook's technology, advertiser relationships and global reach, Boards.ie will continue to build on its success as one of the countries most popular websites.

The number of Facebook shares to be issued in the transaction will be determined based on the 30-day average closing price two trading days prior to the completion of the acquisition. Both companies have approved the transaction, which is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2009.




DeV.

Did you stay up to write that?

The_Minister

You sold out .

To Facebook.

Not happy.

(Though on a personal note, I wish you the very best with the money, and I hope you buy a nice wife life:))

MIN2511

Whats the story with the avatars and sigs?

I suppose they are coming soon

LuckyLloyd

This is not good news at all! So boards.ie is no longer in charge of itself? We're just a pawn for that massive pool of basterds who wanted to steal our pictures? :eek::mad:

And **** those opportunistic daft ***** who came in to profit of us. You sold us out Dev!!

I resign.

Duiske

Those Facebook guys ain't Daft.

neacy69

more like faceplant

redout

What does all this mean for users exactly ?

javaboy

I'm really not happy with this direction. I'm not a big fan of the larger social networking sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace. I'll admit that.

But that's not my point. Up until now Boards was an independent Irish owned and run website. I think selling a controlling stake to a company like Facebook who won't really "get boards" is a bad move. I like the place the way it is and don't want to be overrun with widgets and bombarded with quizzes and lookalikes and all that crap.

I've seen what happens to indie sites that are bought out by larger websites. First they are "realigned" to fit in with the parent company. That means censorship to you and me. Then it's the same look and feel. And then the site just gets absorbed.

I don't want to see this happen to Boards. I like this place the way it is.

In fact I'm pretty pissed off over this. I don't know how long this was in the pipeline but a little consultation would have been nice beforehand. I mean I don't expect my subscriber's fee to entitle me to a say but to have it sprung on us all of a sudden is a bit mad.


And then there's the privacy issue. I didn't agree to pass my details to any third party. In fact I'm pretty sure the privacy policy assured me that Boards wouldn't do that. And now Facebook (a US company with government ties btw) has all my info, ownership of my posts etc.

For those of you who admitted to smoking weed or any other major or minor crime on Boards, I've got news for you. You can forget about your J1 once Facebook do their patriotic duty and pass your details on to Homeland Security.

Once again this is a crock. I'm surprised, disillusioned and disappointed by all this.

This post will probably be deleted or I'll be banned for badmouthing the new owners. :rolleyes:

Jules

Every user who has paid a subscription to boards will get shares in the new venture.

I welcome our new faceless over lords and say, Conas ata tu? Failte go boards.ie!

GuanYin

I like how when you log into facebook, if you have the same e-mail you used to register with boards, it automatically adds the boards.ie box to your profile

Insect Overlord

i think Boards is a pretty cool guy, eh makes threads and doesnt afraid of anything :rolleyes:

DeVore

Widgets are the way of the future, you better all get used to them.

Also, we havent passed on your details to anyone , we created all the accounts ourselves with a script on the Facebook servers so no "release" of data was needed...


DeV.

redout

javaboy wrote: »

I'm really not happy with this direction. I'm not a big fan of the larger social networking sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace. I'll admit that.

But that's not my point. Up until now Boards was an independent Irish owned and run website. I think selling a controlling stake to a company like Facebook who won't really "get boards" is a bad move. I like the place the way it is and don't want to be overrun with widgets and bombarded with quizzes and lookalikes and all that crap.

I've seen what happens to indie sites that are bought out by larger websites. First they are "realigned" to fit in with the parent company. That means censorship to you and me. Then it's the same look and feel. And then the site just gets absorbed.

I don't want to see this happen to Boards. I like this place the way it is.

In fact I'm pretty pissed off over this. I don't know how long this was in the pipeline but a little consultation would have been nice beforehand. I mean I don't expect my subscriber's fee to entitle me to a say but to have it sprung on us all of a sudden is a bit mad.


And then there's the privacy issue. I didn't agree to pass my details to any third party. In fact I'm pretty sure the privacy policy assured me that Boards wouldn't do that. And now Facebook (a US company with government ties btw) has all my info, ownership of my posts etc.

For those of you who admitted to smoking weed or any other major or minor crime on Boards, I've got news for you. You can forget about your J1 once Facebook do their patriotic duty and pass your details on to Homeland Security.

Once again this is a crock. I'm surprised, disillusioned and disappointed by all this.

This post will probably be deleted or I'll be banned for badmouthing the new owners. :rolleyes:

Just visited http://www.face.boards.ie/vbulletin/index.php and the bloody thing looks exactly like facebook !

Big no no for me.

I hate facebook personally, the girlfroend is fuking addicted to it and I am sick of looking at the thing to be honest. Does the old Boards.ie stay the same or will there be a switch over to face boards ?

orestes

Fukk this, I signed up to mod forums on boards, a community I care about, not to be a cog in the machinery of an Orwellian fukking nightmare!

Demod me and siteban me, I have no further business on this site.

Jules

If you have a facebook account and a boards account can you merge the two, cuz that would be so ****ing awesome! And what about Mobile boards will faceboards work mobile?

Come on guys its the future, with all the changes boards has been going through over the last year its obvious something was going on in the pipeline, first daft then staff and now this, its just the next step. We need to move forward together on this, as a community.

javaboy

DeVore wrote: »

Also, we havent passed on your details to anyone , we created all the accounts ourselves with a script on the Facebook servers so no "release" of data was needed...

Now where have I heard that reasoning before? .... oh yes now I remember. We have amended the treaty so that no referendum was needed. :rolleyes:

redout wrote: »

Just visited http://www.face.boards.ie/vbulletin/index.php and the bloody thing looks exactly like facebook !

Big no no for me.

I hate facebook personally, the girlfroend is fuking addicted to it and I am sick of looking at the thing to be honest.

+1

Does the old Boards.ie stay the same or will there be a switch over to face boards ?

They'll probably leave it for a week or two. The difference is when things break CuLT will be slower to fix them on the old boards. Some features might "have to be disabled" to get things working again until eventually you'll be forced to use the new site.

I've seen it all before.

AlmightyCushion

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

This is not good news at all! So boards.ie is no longer in charge of itself? We're just a pawn for that massive pool of basterds who wanted to steal our pictures? :eek::mad:

And **** those opportunistic daft ***** who came in to profit of us. You sold us out Dev!!

I resign.

javaboy wrote: »

I'm really not happy with this direction. I'm not a big fan of the larger social networking sites like Facebook, Bebo and MySpace. I'll admit that.

But that's not my point. Up until now Boards was an independent Irish owned and run website. I think selling a controlling stake to a company like Facebook who won't really "get boards" is a bad move. I like the place the way it is and don't want to be overrun with widgets and bombarded with quizzes and lookalikes and all that crap.

I've seen what happens to indie sites that are bought out by larger websites. First they are "realigned" to fit in with the parent company. That means censorship to you and me. Then it's the same look and feel. And then the site just gets absorbed.

I don't want to see this happen to Boards. I like this place the way it is.

In fact I'm pretty pissed off over this. I don't know how long this was in the pipeline but a little consultation would have been nice beforehand. I mean I don't expect my subscriber's fee to entitle me to a say but to have it sprung on us all of a sudden is a bit mad.


And then there's the privacy issue. I didn't agree to pass my details to any third party. In fact I'm pretty sure the privacy policy assured me that Boards wouldn't do that. And now Facebook (a US company with government ties btw) has all my info, ownership of my posts etc.

For those of you who admitted to smoking weed or any other major or minor crime on Boards, I've got news for you. You can forget about your J1 once Facebook do their patriotic duty and pass your details on to Homeland Security.

Once again this is a crock. I'm surprised, disillusioned and disappointed by all this.

This post will probably be deleted or I'll be banned for badmouthing the new owners. :rolleyes:

Here we go. I hate this crap that happens every time a new feature gets added, we get a vbulletin upgrade or a redesign. Loads of people bítch and moan about how boards is changing for the worse and this will be the death of it. This is a lot of money for boards and the growth opportunity from something like this is insane. The admins would have been stupid to turn this down just to keep a few people who hate change happy.

AlmightyCushion

DeVore wrote: »

Widgets are the way of the future, you better all get used to them.

There had better be a random lolcat generator for feedback.

Orion

Is there any truth to the rumour that boards subscribers can now buy Sunday specials on Saturdays?

:pac:

Red Sleeping Beauty

FaceAdverts.ie ?

Could take off....

javaboy

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

This is a lot of money for boards

Boards is supposed to be a community. That's what we were told. That means the users as well as the owners. Will the users see a penny of that blood money? Will we ***? Mark my words, the only people who will get rich off this are the admins and facebook. The rest of us will just have to suck it up.

I've seen how this stuff works. First they disable some of the features due to server load or some other bull. Then miraculously a few months down the line, the servers are somehow able to cope again but... oh what's this?... that feature is subscription only... oh well ok. So we get rode and have to fork out for what we used to get for free.

The admins would have been stupid to turn this down just to keep a few people who hate change happy.

Slurp. :rolleyes:

banquo

I welcome our new overlords.

*rummages for calendar*

AlmightyCushion

javaboy wrote: »

Boards is supposed to be a community. That's what we were told. That means the users as well as the owners. Will the users see a penny of that blood money? Will we ***? Mark my words, the only people who will get rich off this are the admins and facebook. The rest of us will just have to suck it up.

I imagine the money will be used for more developers or community managers and for things like hardware upgrades. Things like these will make a vast improvement to the boards experience.

MT2

LOUD NOISES

redout

How come users were only informed after the bloody deal had been agreed ? (obviously you lot own the site but we the users make it what it is do we not ?)

A bit of a warning would have been appreciated and even a feedback thread.

Sounds a bit deceitful.

LuckyLloyd

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I imagine the money will be used for more developers or community managers and for things like hardware upgrades. Things like these will make a vast improvement to the boards experience.

OR JACK UP THE PRICE OF THE REMAINING 49% SO THAT THE GREEDY ***** CAN REALLY GET SOME HUH???? :mad::mad::mad:

LuckyLloyd

redout wrote: »

How come users were only informed after the bloody deal had been agreed ? (obviously you lot own the site but we the users make it what it is do we not ?)

A bit of a warning would have been appreciated and even a feedback thread.

Sounds a bit deceitful.

Nah, we just mattered in so much as we could make them a few quid. *****.

Nevyn

FÚCK THAT.

It was bad enough when you bastards sprung the deal with daft.ie on us and now this. I trusted you, I listen to you Dev and regi when you took the time to
explain to me how things were to be as you wanted staff for this site and
wanted to be sure there was a enough money for a pay roll and now this ?

And what they hell have your fúcking staff done anyway other then faff about asking inane questions and screwing things up.

and now this, all of a sudden you have all turned into corporate whores.
Was sucking Daft.ie dick such a natural thing for you all that you just
rolled over and took it up the ass from facebook ?

Fúck you all you shower of greedy cock mongers, I have had enough abuse
of all the small minded misogynistic bastards on this site, so much for your
altruism or was that just another petty false promise to keep us all looking the wrong way while you did this.

I quit.

I want to be removed from all my forums I will cause a bigger shít storm then par or amp did.

I know where you fúcking live Dev you need not think you and the other jizz gargling admins are getting away with this.

andrew

I for one welcome our new california based overlords.

javaboy

AlmightyCushion wrote: »

I imagine the money will be used for more developers or community managers and for things like hardware upgrades. Things like these will make a vast improvement to the boards experience.

Did you notice how much downtimes there has been in the build up to this announcement? Crap boards is down again. Oops Boards will be down for an hour or so. There may be some intermittent issues for a while. It goes on and on.

All the while CuLT is sitting there laughing just waiting for the nod from DeV to flick the switch to on again. It's all been a scam to soften us up so that people like you will swallow the line about the money being for much needed hardware upgrades.

sceptre

Guys, I can see some of you are a tad miffed about this but isn't it worth seeing what's going to happen with the site and the user data before going off in a huff about it?

I mean, it's not like any of us have contributed all that much really. And there's only so much that the admins can do with the hardware they currently have.

redout

Fuk me, mods quitting left and right ! :eek:

Think the admins need to take a long hard look at this and come to the conclusion this is not a popular decision and there should have been some consultation with users.

Orion

Can Thaed's hissy-fit/PMT be podcasted. Maybe incorporated into the RTE broadcast. It would beat the fuck out of Celebrity Banisteor.

:pac:

DeVore

redout wrote: »

Fuk me, mods quitting left and right ! :eek:

Think the admins need to take a long hard look at this and come to the conclusion this is not a popular decision and there should have been some consultation with users.

fuk that... I'd have to give all the money back!


DeV.

AlmightyCushion

javaboy wrote: »

Did you notice how much downtimes there has been in the build up to this announcement? Crap boards is down again. Oops Boards will be down for an hour or so. There may be some intermittent issues for a while. It goes on and on.

All the while CuLT is sitting there laughing just waiting for the nod from DeV to flick the switch to on again. It's all been a scam to soften us up so that people like you will swallow the line about the money being for much needed hardware upgrades.

Better get that tinfoil hat at the ready there, javaboy. I hear myspace is run by the lizard people.

LuckyLloyd

DeVore wrote: »

fuk that... I'd have to give all the money back!


DeV.

You greedy ****. :mad:

Jules

Not all the mods are quitting, some of us have some loyalties.

AlmightyCushion

Jules wrote: »

Not all the mods are quitting, some of us have some loyalties.

You mean some of us aren't whiney little bitches.

LightningBolt

This is disgraceful. Censorship on it's way, destroying boards. What about people who want their boards account private from facebook. There's links in facebook to all my posts now. People will know what I'm really like.

Nevyn

Jules wrote: »

Not all the mods are quitting, some of us have some loyalties.

Some of us have ethics and a fúcking spine.
The admins have 24 hours.

javaboy

sceptre wrote: »

Guys, I can see some of you are a tad miffed about this but isn't it worth seeing what's going to happen with the site and the user data before going off in a huff about it?

I've seen how it goes on other sites. Daft was ok. They understood the ethos around here.
Facefúck is a different story. Mark my words.

I'm normally the optimistic type and I'd be saying the same as you but this is different. I've seen good indie sites destroyed by the likes of Facebook.

And there's only so much that the admins can do with the hardware they currently have.

Surprise surprise! Toe the

like a good puppet.



This is a joke. If the mods had even been consulted it wouldn't have been so bad. I mean it's your site to throw down the crapper if you want but don't forget who made this site what it is. The users and the mods.

I ain't gonna work on Maggie's farm no more!

Orion

DeVore wrote: »

fuk that... I'd have to give all the money back!


DeV.

Always knew you fucs were in it for the long con. Admins are bastards. But as usual I'll just bend over and take it up the ass for the "community".

Jules

Stop trying to hold boards back, either get with the programme or jump back on your broom!

cHaTbOx

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

You greedy ****. :mad:

Thaedydal wrote: »

Some of us have ethics and a fúcking spine.
The admins have 24 hours.

Take it to Faceback