FACEBOOK going public
 

Facebook Files to Going Public, So What Does It Mean for You? | FOX8.com

On Wednesday, Facebook filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission for a $5 billion IPO or initial public offering of stock, according to CNN.

Not sure what a $5 Billion IPO means though...

IPO is scheduled for the third week in May.

A Wall Street Daily article about avoiding the Facebook IPO. Your thoughts on the article?

Three Reasons to Avoid the Facebook IPO | Wall Street Daily

we can finally see the actual revenues of fb soon =)

$5B IPO relatively low for FB.. probably gauging investor interest?

Facebook earnings have not topped $2B, and the only way to earn more is to be more intrusive with ads, which will slow growth. Sales (apps, gifts, ...) have not generated very much for Facebook, and I doubt will.

I think the analysis is spot on. It'll be bid up too high and come back down as reality sets in.

fuck facebook

with MOST web-based firm, their IPO is always put stupidly high because their "userbase" dosen't directly translate to a high profit margin or corporate efficiency.
Look at the dotcom crash - the exact same thing (except the crash was amplified by a hold-out period)


Trust me, I ran the regressions

and this will be what kills facebook.

This is why they have put it off for as long as possible.

A-going more "corporate" makes things less "cool". Pressure to drive the stock up means as Taylor said, more ads and more money.

B-Everyone gets a look at the books. Don't even need to own a share.

if they release 100,000,000 shares (shares outstanding) @ $50 a share that would be 5 billion.

most internet IPOs have done poorly lately.
linkedin, groupon, just to name a few.
the more hype an IPO has the more likely it'll get shorted.

:lawl:

Facebook · where pedobear may find out where you live, where you hang, who you hang with, what your family looks like, where you go to work / school, events you're attending... The list goes on and on...

Yep, gonna invest in that...

don't think it'll KILL facebook... fb still generates tons of money through ads, but it'll definitely show how over-valued it is

the key is that there's not much more room for future growth to legitimize that valuation, fb is reaching its ceiling so unless it can find new areas to generate revenue, it'll be a dud stock

facebook will be the next groupon -- feel bad for the suckers that went in at IPO. At most , facebook / groupon will be novelty stocks.

i tend to disagree. at first i saw that yes, there's no way their user base is gonna grow very much, with them having nearly a billion users and there being 7 billion people in the world

then i read that their revenue is 85% based off advertising and they only have a 1% share of the online advertising market. so really it's about taking their existing user base and monetizing it. From what i see, they barely monetized it right now and with their demographic profiling giving them the ability to serve the ads far better than google, i see huge potential.

PS
the other 15% is commision from online games based on fb such as farmville or whatever the fuck. As long as dumbass kids and annoying people exist, that's gonna grow as well :troll:

THUS...more advertising pisses off more users thus someone starts the "next" facebook and thus....kills facebook? Welcome to my point ;)

Myspace was unstoppable. NewsCorp bought it for how many billion? Then...it died. Newscorp was the opposite of cool, and they wanted a ROI. Stock investors also want a ROI. That'll make them equally "uncool".

Really the only thing the IPO does is allow a bunch of people to cash out. Even then, there are restrictions.

^i don't know if comparing fb to myspace is any good. Myspace was miniscule - i don't know a single person who used it. I would compare FB's potential to google. I work in online marketing and the trend is to switch from Google Adwords to FB Ads in consumer advertising. The reason - google you pay per click and fb you pay per click, but with FB you can target the userbase based on dozens of factors, whereas google only looks at keywords.

In terms of your point of users dropping off due to ads - i don't see it as well. I think it has gotten to a point where it is an essential service, and users are already using it and not minding the little ads on the side. Everytime they change the privacy settings, every bitches but barely anyone drops off. New users are coming in everyday - when someone reaches a certain age, BAM they're on FB. All FB has to do now is grow the trend of advertisers buying in, and making their advertising system more sophisticated. Thye don't need to implement any changes to their existing interface or business model to do this.

I'm not a hippie who thinks google and fb will always be around - i just think they're both safe for quite the next little while. I think they waited so long for the IPO because htey needed both the earnings, the revenue model and the userbase to be locked in to a point where monetizing it to a greater extent will not change things very much.

i do agree that eventually there will be a "new" facebook (twitter is already doing it and there are dozens of copycats in other countries), but everytime someone does something original facebook replicates it and integrates it into their better platform with more users. So thus far they're been quite good at competing and domionating in this sense

i think fb is here to stay for a long time.
its unlike friendster and whatever was before it.
its almost too big to fail at this point.
the "next" fb will have to innovate beyond something fb can easily replicate.
i think were going to see fb for at least another 10 years.
i thought g+ would be big because they are pushing it on all new android phones, and android dominates the market, but right now its still 1/100th what fb is and its not like people dont know what it is.

Just a little comparison to be cautious of:

Google:

Revenue: 38 Billion
Profit: 9.7 Billion
Total value of All Shares: 188 Billion

Apple:
Revenue: 109 Billion
Profit: 26 Billion
Total Value of All Shares: 425 Billion

Facebook:
Revenue: 2.5 Billion
Profit: 700 Million
Proposed Total Value: 85-100 Billion

So just saying Beware of that. It's Trying to get Valued at over Half of Google's Value...with less than 1/10th its Revenue and Profits.
Can Facebook grow 500% faster than Google?
Can it grow 1000% faster than Apple?

So ya, don't get too excited and put all your money in something like this.

Even if nothing goes wrong, and it keeps growing...how much bigger can it reasonably get?

Google+ isn't going to take off because its a facebook clone. In that sense, facebook has staying power, because why am I going to switch to "not facebook" when I can just be on facebook?

People originally signed on to facebook because of real names and standard inferface, instead of myspace's well...shitshow design. I would see its next competitor going back to a system with more individual control in some standardized format. In my mind, that should have been google's take on social networking. Think of the marketing if, "you are an individual, shouldn't your page reflect that?" PLUS(oh, thats why they could call it plus) it would be difficult to integrate that into FB's business strategy because it would be such a big change. Google should hire me.

The next problem facebook will have is boredom of the platform. People will change to something just because its new and key difference from +, different.

PS, myspace was huge in the states. No one cares about Canada. Yippee, we'll gain a percentage of 30 million people.

Honestly, I dont think the potential of Facebook has even been scratched. I can imagine it being THE main business directory in the future. where every business (well, most) has a page (costs money) and you search for services thru facebook, not look in the yellowpages.


didnt they just make a change where businesses can no longer be a 'group' and now need to have a business page? first step right there

It's actually great for businesses to be on Facebook. The ability to instantly connect with a large group of your clients, is not found anywhere. People offer up suggestions either thru the wall or a quick message. The interface is incredibly versatile. Want to just use Facebook to post your drunk, party photos? Sure, but you can also use it as part of your marketing strategy and could be a great tool in terms of PR.

my only problem with fb is the lack of privacy features.
if you have a page on there, they want you to be found.
its not made for ppl to use in private circles, but rather for people to connect with everyone they know.
i made a new account with a fraction of the people as my old one, and even with all privacy features turned on, i still show up on peoples sidebar as "people you may know".
huge turnoff for me in a world that gets less and less private all the time.

$5 billion IPO means Mark Zuckerberg will have $24 billion dollars in Facebook shares.

A lot of people are going to become very rich.. like the graffiti artist who painted their office walls with art, in exchange for shares.. His shares will be worth $200 million.. not bad for a paint job! :ahwow:

:okay: My business page has 31 fans...and dino had to ask people to join so I could name it. :rukidding:

Well, the thing is, neither has G+, except google is mostly sitting on their asses about it. I expected a lot more from Google.
Everybody has a gmail account already. It should have been simple for them to turn G+ into your Google Hub. Except, well, they have been really bad about integrating their services under 1 banner for the user.