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ABS CBN buys into Multiply

In a surprise move, TV giant ABS-CBN has announced yesterday that it has bought a minority stake into social networking site, Multiply.

The purchase was for 5% of Multiply which costs $5 million or close to Php250 million.

A year ago this month, ABS-CBN first went into an advertising deal with Multiply. It looks like that deal got a lot of traction and the media giant saw great potential.

ABS-CBN will continue to monetize the social networking site thru traditional CPM-based advertising and offering mobile service. They’ve even added a clause that will enable ABS-CBN to buy as much as 10% of Multiply. I think they’d be able to recover that investment in less than 5 years.

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Avatar for Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

23 Responses

  1. Avatar for arch arch says:

    Where’s multiply now? :P

    Facebook and Twitter are the only sites visited by Filipinos (and even in other countries) the most. Poor ABS-CBN, doing some wrong marketing move. Wasted money :P

  2. Avatar for paolo paolo says:

    actually, its a very good move. they realized that multiply is kinda like the ebay of the Philippines now and we all know that ebay is worth millions. They did it because of the sudden boom of multiply stores and get tons of hits.

  3. Avatar for jocelyn jocelyn says:

    goodluck poh

  4. Avatar for B. AQUINO B. AQUINO says:

    Goodluck to ABS CBN… Stupid move! I think ABS CBN should make their own website number 1. Interactive is such a loser. They banned a lot of account in youtube. Mr. Dennis Lim you’re such a loser!

  5. Avatar for Colin Neville Colin Neville says:

    Wow, ABS-CBN is really positioning itself in the social networking market.

  6. Avatar for Bong Bong says:

    Wow this is really something, isn’t it? I wonder what GMA7’s play is in relation to this.

  7. Avatar for Andrei Gonzales Andrei Gonzales says:

    Wrong move.

    They should have gone with MySpace (for the American-Pinoys), Facebook and Facebook apps, Twitter, and Plurk. Why invest in a site that has hit a plateau, so they spent $5M investing on a site that isn’t ever going to give them the ROI they’re looking for.

    Slightly OT:

    $100M in valuation? Seriously now… I really wonder who values these sites. Multiply is probably worth $50M tops. They don’t even that large of a hold on the US and UK markets (the markets that will give you an actual cash turnover). Could you imagine trying to make a turnover off the Philippine market?

    More links to social network market share:

    http://blogs.zdnet.com/social/?p=114
    http://www.swivel.com/data_columns/spreadsheet/3461546?order_by_direction=DESC

    Multiply isn’t even in the top 20.

  8. Avatar for Jay Jay says:

    this is madness!

    why multiply pa? a majority of filipinos and asians use Friendster..

  9. Avatar for Dinah Dinah says:

    well, friendster is more masa while facebook is more upper class and multiply i think is in the middle. so, maybe right lang for abs cbn’s target audience.

  10. Avatar for psyche psyche says:

    Now I understand why there is constant plugging @ studio 23 for multiply links.

  11. Avatar for elmer elmer says:

    when my wife learned this yesterday she closed her multiply account and moved to facebook, why? she’s a certified (??) kapuso daw eh! LOL

  12. Avatar for Aspiring Entrepreneur Aspiring Entrepreneur says:

    Oh, that’s why most ads that appear on Multiply are for ABS-CBN products, services or artists.

  13. Avatar for butinalang butinalang says:

    multiply? la nmann binatbat yan sa facebook or kahit sa friendster man lang..asa pa sila.

  14. Avatar for WEBMASTER WEBMASTER says:

    I think for now ABS-CBN will benefit on the current trend on the web but I on the long run it will not be a good for the business, since the birth of DIY social networking is now slowly picking up.

    Multiply as now is doing well as of the moment but just like the friendster that boom on the early 2000 and now slowly declining due the new social networking sites such as facebook.

    http://www.wordtext.com.ph/uploads/wsifiles/Corel_Product_Catalogue_Ebook.pdf

    http://corel-lifestyle.blogspot.com/

  15. Avatar for BM BM says:

    I love ABS-CBN!

  16. Avatar for Gwapito.com Gwapito.com says:

    ABS-CBN and its sister companies likes to invest and spend millions, but don’t have the strategy to earn big.

  17. Avatar for Snow Snow says:

    nice move from abs-cbn huh? social networking sites are great tool for advertisement nowadays so it’s a win-win situation for both parties.

    the move will also enable multiply to market the website to the philippine audience. ^_^

  18. Avatar for edzhstar edzhstar says:

    wow..

  19. Avatar for phitski phitski says:

    if you notice some of abs-cbn program has a multiply site.

  20. Avatar for sylv3rblade sylv3rblade says:

    So that’s why the first place we heard about the details of the Hero Con was multiply….. Meh

  21. Avatar for Rein Valdez Rein Valdez says:

    Wow that’s nice to hear. :)

    Good Luck to ABS-CBN ang Multiply.

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