Leonid Bershidsky, Columnist

Why Facebook Wants Snapchat But Doesn't Need It

Facebook's bid for Snapchat provides insight into the fickle workings of social media.

November 14, 2013 at 5:17 PM UTC

Leonid Bershidsky, formerly Bloomberg Opinion’s Europe columnist, is a member of the Bloomberg News Automation Team. He recently published Russian translations of George Orwell’s “1984” and Franz Kafka’s “The Trial.”

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Snapchat could hardly have asked for a better publicity boost than Facebook's $3 billion offer for the photo-messaging company. Within a day after Snapchat refused the overture, the application jumpedfrom sixth place to fourth in the U.S. iOS store. In Russia, where few people had previously heard of Snapchat, it soared from 1,773rd place to 263rd.

Facebook's enormous market power, and Mark Zuckerberg's judgment, clearly command a lot of respect. So why does Facebook have to offer billions to twentysomething start-up founders who make apps it can easily reproduce? Therein lies a clue to the fickle workings of social media.