This just blew me away. 50 million registered users (1/5th of Facebook and 50x what Friendfeed had when they sold?). Near breakeven with some profitable-looking features on the horizon. Selling for $20m in the same month where Friendfeed sold for $50m...?

I think Friendfeed was more purchased for the people who worked there than for the work that they had put out publicly. Facebook isn't done growing and Friendfeed had some great architects that could and will help with that growth.

Do we have a solid source on either figure?

Naw, but a few sources are quoting the $20m figure. I know a bunch of guys at iLike, so I will eventually have solid sources. ;-)

If the $20m holds, it still seems staggeringly low in light of lots of other exits. 50m users plus near profitable plus team of really talented guys (the iLike guys are pretty top notch and very engineer-centric) seems like it oughta command more than $20m.

If $20M is correct, it is evidence that your impression of the state of the company could be wrong. I agree with your intuition though.

Windows does not belong in that list - it is much more open and plenty of companies have built large, sustainable businesses on top of it.

And Microsoft tries to crush everyone that makes significant money on Windows -- Quicken, Adobe, Borland, etc. there are tons of examples.

It's a huge concern. When a company starts hitting that $100M range, you're essentially worth a decent percentage of what Facebook is worth (maybe 5%). At that point, it starts making sense for Facebook to put a little work to competing with you and putting you out of business.

These platforms can be good if you're willing to be unnoticed in the corner. However, if you find something highly worthwhile, your landlord can copy you and shut you out.

If you're talking about a $50M buy, you have to be thinking that you'll be able to get at least triple out of that on such a risky purchase. And if a Facebook app is that worthwhile, how long until Facebook itself moves into the space?