NBC to buy Tribenet?

Posted Jul 10th 2006 1:46PM by Tobias Buckell
Filed under: Deals, Rumors, Products and Services, Industry, Competitive Strategy, General Electric (GE)

TechCrunch is reporting on rumors that NBC is working on buying the social networking site Tribe.net to power some of its online networking sites like iVillage. This sort of purchase would make sure social networking sites are a mainstream phenomenon, particularly if it was big money like NBC's behind them.

Why might NBC be snagging this particular group up? Valleywag thinks it is because NBC is trying to position itself as the opposite of the Fox network as it notices some are disillusioned by the strong partisanship platform of the network. Though if that is true, using a software purchase to increase grass roots infiltration of those who don't cotton to Fox might have the same exact kind of backlash from consumers who are getting even more cynical about media from large institutions. The popularity of social networking and grassroots sites like Tribe.net is to make an end run around large organizations. Will places like NBC be able to co-opt that?

With enough money, probably.

Tags: Fox, GE, iVillage, NBC, tribe.net