Forbes reports on large business’ “insatiable appetite for data,” evidenced by Facebook’s recent $19 billion acquisition of messaging service WhatsApp. Part of the rationale for the acquisition lies in the way users share data, one analyst said. “The more Facebook users there are, the more sharing activity and the more connections that users have, then the more inventory is available for advertising, thus driving revenues,” he said. Similar transactions of late include Yahoo’s acquisition of Tumblr and Microsoft’s purchase of Skype, in which the company “paid a premium way above what they might have to get customer data,” another analyst said.
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