The people with the money and the right connections are going to jump all over this over-inflated turd. Once they find out what they've actually bought, though, they are going to be *pissed off*. And as rule #1 in business is "Don't piss off the money", this will spell the end of Facebook.

Hooray!

Another bubble!

i wish they would just stay private and damn the employees looking to cash out. going public is going to force them to manage near-term revenue expectations, which could really hurt the UX, and they are going to be sitting on a sh*tload of cash that they will be forced to spend regardless of whether they have anything good to spend it on.

People with money will make more money. Everyone else will take a bath when the bubble bursts.

ha-ha-guy: How much is the personal information of most of the Western world worth is the real question.

i think that might even be too narrow a definition of the asset. aside from personal information, it's also the largest social hub in the western world and increasingly a global online identifier (as more sites are starting to use the login through facebook feature). i'm not saying it's worth $100B, but its business model isn't all unsustainable smoke and mirrors like a lot of recent IPOs *cough groupon cough*.

HotWingConspiracy: atomic-age: HotWingConspiracy: "They could put ads in a lot of places and they're very deliberate about not doing that."

But they will be when shareholders have a say. They'll be putting ads on key words in your updates soon enough. Once fb turns in to a massive advertising platform, it goes the way of AOL. A lot of people will be fine with it, but tons of people will punt.

They already do this. A post about puppies will get you ads for puppies for sale, as an example.

No I mean the ad will be in your status update for all your friends to see and click.

i have to believe that they'll keep user experience at the forefront of their decisions for exactly the reasons you're mentioning. other sites have gone public with little or no changes to their ad placements.

They will only sell a 10% stake.

That means that at any time after the IPO they could sell an additional 90% of their stock. Unless you are a banker that has his hands in managing the initial offering this is a surefire way for losing money.

SomethingInYourTeeth: How is it they make money again? Someone said ads but I really never see any ads.
I think they sell our data; that would be where the real money is.

I rarely use Facebook, but I always see a "sponsored" section on most pages. My ad blocker doesn't catch it, even.

thomps: i think that might even be too narrow a definition of the asset. aside from personal information, it's also the largest social hub in the western world and increasingly a global online identifier (as more sites are starting to use the login through facebook feature). i'm not saying it's worth $100B, but its business model isn't all unsustainable smoke and mirrors like a lot of recent IPOs *cough groupon cough*.

Agreed. Unlike MySpace, Friendster... *everyone and their mother* uses Facebook. Heck, even people like me- who tried to avoid it- have to use it to communicate with idiots who refuse to use anything but Facebook to communicate. (My cousin from down under was coming for a visit... something that takes a little bit of logistics, ya know... and only ever communicates through Facebook. Frustrating.)

Useless exercise:

-The S&P 500 is currently trading at 1.2x revenues.
-Google is currently trading at 5.4x revenues, market cap of $193.3 billion.
-Facebook at $100 billion would represent 24.7x revenues (2011 revenue est. of $4.05 billion).
-Google's market cap at 24.7x would be just under $900 billion, or slightly below South Korea's annual GDP (15th largest economy in the world).

Okay, so the whole exercise is a stretch. FB's growth rates will drop as it gets larger, the multiple will come in. Google is already considered a more mature company, maybe deserving of a lower multiple. But Facebook already has more than 800 million users so I'd say the marketable user base is already getting somewhat saturated.

I just think the whole thing is silly. I'm sure the stock will pop higher at open, but buying into the Facebook hype will end up being a game of musical chairs for your average investor.

poot_rootbeer: thomps: they are going to be sitting on a sh*tload of cash that they will be forced to spend regardless of whether they have anything good to spend it on.

Woohoo, indiscriminate hiring spree!

Maybe I'll scam my way into a six-figure analyst position with them, sit back and spend more time hoarding freebies than doing work, and then bail out a year later when the layoffs start happening.

you're thinking too small. build some bullsh*t fb app and get them to buy it for way too much during their inevitable acquisition orgy.