Facebook Sees $25M From Greylock

Venture capital funding provided by Greylock Partners and other firms totaling $25 million placed a value of $525 million on Facebook, which reportedly turned down $750 million from Viacom.

Greylock may have just saved Sumner Redstone, Viacom’s chief, a few million should Viacom’s executives come around for another try at buying Facebook, a popular college and high school student social networking site.

The investment by Greylock and other firms as reported in SiliconBeat should put the takeover rumors to rest. The company’s director of marketing, Melanie Deitch, said that as well: “It has never been our intention to sell the company.”

Reports of a drop in traffic to the site, which had some citing the premature demise of Facebook, were apparently an “aberration,” the article said. ComScore’s metrics from February showed a decline in Facebook traffic while Facebook’s numbers disagreed. The March comScore numbers now seem to indicate Facebook is still growing:

Greylock’s David Sze said in the article that Facebook would eventually develop three revenue streams: local advertising for college and university-area businesses; banner ads to satisfy demand from national brands to reach Facebook’s young demographic; and sponsored groups that give large companies a chance to interact (use for market research, perhaps) with Facebook’s audience.

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David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.