At the beginning, it seemed to be a nonsense rumor and I didn't give it credit at all, but as days elapsed, more information appeared on this topic, so I'm starting to believe that something is moving inside Zuckerberg's head and Opera could be his new toy.
Facebook To Purchase Opera?
If Zuckerberg is planning to buy the Norwegian browser maker Opera Software, developer of the Opera and Opera Mini browsers for desktops and mobile phones, what would be left of the partnership developed with Microsoft? As you can remember, Facebook has been lately improved with Bing search ability, I really doubt that Zuckerberg would be that crazy to ruin his friendship with Gates, just for the fun of purchasing Opera.
Anyhow, if the acquisition is heading to be something real, it would give Facebook a way to quickly create a customized browser for the social networking. It would also put Facebook in the middle of a browser war with Microsoft (Internet Explorer), Mozilla (Firefox), Google (Chrome) and Apple (Safari). Much more, an acquisition of Opera could give Facebook a major boost, since Zuckerberg argued that the mobile version of Facebook has to bring more money.
Opera isn't the only rumor in Facebook's yard, the social network has been thought to be working on a HTC social smartphone, running Android. Buying Opera would certainly make more sense for Facebook, if you take in account the 270 million people using Opera browsers every month, believed to click on Facebook's ads and so generate revenues.
UK technology website Pocket-lint first launched the rumor, which was soon enough declined by both Opera and Facebook, but still there are some questions unanswered inside this rumor. For instance, Opera is looking for investors and can't deny this detail, on the other side, Opera is the only top-five browser that Facebook could conceivably acquire, since Internet Explorer is locked with Windows, Firefox with non-profit Mozilla Foundation, Chrome with Chrome OS and Safari with OS X and iOS. It's hard to believe that Mozilla or the rest of brands would sell Firefox to Facebook, a company that has reaped billions from a self-contained ecosystem.
Facebook To Purchase Opera?
Unfortunately for Zuckerberg, Opera is the fifth browser as popularity and use (1.6% of the world's in-use browsers, according to data from metrics company Net Applications), so it won't bring him the expected profit, so he should think twice, before making it public. Of course, as he promotes two similar apps for photography, he can go on with Bing and Opera, perfectly teaming. Much more, in US, Facebook collects about one-in-every-five page views, if it brands Opera and Opera Mini, than it could quickly boost the browsers' shares.
Another bad thing for Zuckerberg is that has been in App Store for more than two years, and is also available for Android, Symbian-powered phones and BlackBerry series, so it's not that fresh, as he would prefer. Opera can be surpassed by Chrome on Android-based gadgets, so customers are likely to forget about it, but still there are other customers, who won't probably cease to use it. Opera Mini would be a great advantage, by letting Facebook enter a more browser-like and fast interface than the Facebook app on iOS, but it can only be a disadvantage, if some customers are willing not to accept the fusion.
Other parts of Opera would also be attractive to a buyer like Facebook, including Opera's new payment processing technology, Opera Payment Exchange and its existing relationships with carriers and handset makers.
11