This One Tweet Explains Why Rakuten Paying $900 Million For Viber Was A Mistake

Earlier today, Japanese e-commerce company Rakuten announced that it would be buying Viber for $900 million. Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani explained that the messaging app could be used as a way for customers to talk with an online store about a purchase. GigaOm's Om Malik thinks there's a big problem with that:: How is Rakuten going to turn people who use Viber to cheap out on calls/SMS to spend big dollars on e-commerce, especially in emerging mkts — Om Malik (@om) February 14, 2014 So what i...