facebook

henry quirk • May 18, 2012 4:32 pm
What exactly makes facebook 'worth' the godawful amount of money the talking heads claim?

Seems to me: facebook's current 'value' is based solely on the possibility the company can -- in some fashion -- turn a buck (by way of service or product or advertising) tomorrow.

Seems to me: buying facebook stock is just buying very expensive lottery tickets.

What am I am missing?
glatt • May 18, 2012 4:38 pm
Nothing.

You'd probably be better off buying Greek bonds right now.
DanaC • May 18, 2012 4:40 pm
There's a lot of potential for microfunding in the social games side of things.
henry quirk • May 18, 2012 4:52 pm
I don't know what 'that' means.
BigV • May 18, 2012 7:54 pm
Usually it means the opposite of 'this'.
ZenGum • May 18, 2012 8:16 pm
Two income streams, that merge.

Firstly, those little adds that sit on the side. A tiny drop of money per time, by a gazillion drops = $$$.
Secondly, amassing all your data - derived by sifting through your posts, activities, likes, comments etc, cross referencing this with your google search data, youtube browsing history, gmail keywords, etc - and building a detailed picture of you to sell to advertisers, to better target those little adds mentioned above.

Feeling paranoid yet?
glatt • May 18, 2012 9:51 pm
Yeah. Facebook has value. They do make money. But the amount of money they make is miniscule compared to what their stock just went for. It doesn't make sense that they are valued at 38 bucks. They should be one tenth that, or maybe one fifth, if you factor in irrational exuberance.
Blueflare • May 19, 2012 7:21 am
I'm glad I'm not the only person baffled by the $104 billion figure. Where the hell does that come from?
I know they make a lot of money from advertising, but, not a huge amount. And they are thinking of starting to charge people for their services, so that's a revenue stream, potentially. Though I must say I find it hard to imagine that users will actually start paying.
Does anyone actually like Facebook at all? I rather get the impression that it's just sort of tolerated as a tool for life.
DanaC • May 19, 2012 7:54 am
I think there's a lot of potential...but whether or not it will be realised to an extent which might justify that figure is another matter entirely.
glatt • May 19, 2012 9:09 am
The paper this morning is reporting that at several point throught the first day of trading, the banks that put the deal together ( including JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs)stepped in to prop up the share price and keep it above the 38 opening price.

They can't keep it propped up forever. It will be interesting to see where it settles.
Undertoad • May 19, 2012 11:12 am
I like Facebook a lot. Half of the civilized world uses it. I think it will be worth the IPO rate. The theory is that no advertising will survive except targeted advertising which takes into account who you are and what you like. These are things FB knows about us because we told it and our friends also told it.

The big question is whether it is a fad a la Myspace. I think it has enough infrastructure to be blue chip Internet and not suddenly go away by making some terrible privacy setting error.
DanaC • May 19, 2012 11:30 am
I think one of the things that also went wrong with MySpace was that it became very youthcentric. Which is fine whilst you've got the youngsters on board, but youth culture moves wayfast. When it lost its cool status, there was no alternative userbase to pick it back up again.

Facebook has an advantage in that it is the communication tool of choice for many different sectors, both in terms of users and in terms of industries. Very widely used by academics, political types, the charity sector just to name a few.

As much as I hate interfacing with it, Facebook is ubiquitous.

@ Henry: the microfunding I mentioned refers to the way a lot of social games and even full-on massively multi-player games fund their projects now. Instead of a purchase fee for the game and/or monthly subscription, many games finance themselves through microtransactions. So, in a game you may have certain items which can be gained through play. But there may be additional items (or in-game currency to use when playing) which can be bought from an online store. Or you may be able to play so much of the game but in order to unlock the 'premium' content you have to pay.

Facebook has proved an interesting medium for light social games (Farmville, Mafia Wars etc). There's room there for microfinancing. Some are already doing it I think.
Gravdigr • May 19, 2012 4:25 pm
henry quirk;812228 wrote:
I don't know what 'that' means.


BigV;812243 wrote:
Usually it means the opposite of 'this'.


As in:

[ATTACH]38813[/ATTACH]
classicman • May 20, 2012 12:12 am
Google currently makes 10x more than FB.
They only made 3.7B last year. Yeh, that's a shit ton, but nowhere near enough to justify the 100+B.
I play no games, use no apps and unfriend people that keep offering them to me.
Clodfobble • May 20, 2012 9:41 am
DanaC wrote:
As much as I hate interfacing with it, Facebook is ubiquitous.


I disagree. MySpace was ubiquitous right up until Facebook came along. I'm gonna predict that in... say, five more years, max, Facebook will be as dead as MySpace. Which is to say, not gone, but a graveyard, not used by anyone you know. Zuckerberg knows it, which is precisely why he's cashing out now. The next "big" thing, I predict, will be pinterest.

The thing about popular culture, as opposed to technological innovation or engineering, is that people will change simply because change is interesting, not because the new thing is objectively better than the old.
henry quirk • May 21, 2012 9:53 am
Thanks, Dana... ;)
infinite monkey • May 23, 2012 12:39 pm
Facebook's Facebook status:

Who, US? We ain't cheatin'!

http://news.blogs.cnn.com/2012/05/23/oh-zuck-facebooks-bumpy-start-just-got-a-little-worse/?hpt=hp_t1
classicman • May 23, 2012 12:43 pm
Facebook defended themselves on Wednesday saying they "believe the lawsuit is without merit and will defend ourselves vigorously."

Well, they got BILLIONS ... shouldn't be hard to buy a few favorable opinions.
infinite monkey • May 23, 2012 12:47 pm
I haven't logged into facebook in so long. I just can't care.
glatt • May 23, 2012 1:18 pm
infinite monkey;812832 wrote:
I haven't logged into facebook in so long. I just can't care.


Don't forget that FB tracks your movements throughout the web so they can target you with ads. Logging out doesn't stop it. You have to delete cookies.
infinite monkey • May 23, 2012 1:26 pm
Google already targets me in my gmail. I don't really care. Facebook just bores me.
limey • May 24, 2012 10:17 am
Yabbut if you use Firefox you can have the Adblock Plus add-on free which hids all ads from your FB experience. It's so refreshing!
jimhelm • May 24, 2012 10:48 am
glatt;812838 wrote:
Don't forget that FB tracks your movements throughout the web so they can target you with ads. Logging out doesn't stop it. You have to delete cookies.
henry quirk • May 31, 2012 9:37 am
Good.
glatt • May 31, 2012 9:47 am
henry quirk;813443 wrote:
Good.


Shadenfreude
henry quirk • May 31, 2012 10:12 am
Damned straight.
infinite monkey • May 31, 2012 10:30 am
That's our world: greed and thieving and lying...what do y'all expect? I wish facebook would fail completely and forever.
henry quirk • May 31, 2012 10:43 am
I do believe that's a wish that'll come true... ;)
infinite monkey • May 31, 2012 10:56 am
henry quirk;813456 wrote:
I do believe that's a wish that'll come true... ;)


Wooohoooooo! This is better than the Nerf Frisbee I won from Clubhouse 22s Pick-a-Door.

Wishes DO come true! (wishing really hard: some crazy person I don't know dies and leaves me 500 acres of animal reserve (preserve?) to run, plus a big old house and a swimming pool.) Too much?
classicman • May 31, 2012 1:16 pm
infinite monkey;813460 wrote:
(wishing really hard: some crazy person I don't know dies and leaves me 500 acres of animal reserve (preserve?) to run, plus a big old house and a swimming pool.)

... and kitty cat farm.
(:insertcatpawsmilieican'tfind)
infinite monkey • May 31, 2012 2:50 pm
classicman;813477 wrote:
... and kitty cat farm.
(:insertcatpawsmilieican'tfind)


:paws:
:paw:
:catpaw:
:dogpaw:
:catfoot:
:dogfoot:
:cathand:
:doghand:
:catsteppingappendage:
:catarm:
:dogarm:
:steppytoecat:
:pause:
:pas:
:meow:



Yeah, not really intuitive, is it? ;)
infinite monkey • May 31, 2012 2:56 pm
:apaw:

That's colonapawcolon

Why not :thepaw: or :thispaw: or :somepaw: ;)
limey • May 31, 2012 5:08 pm
:apaw:
[SIZE="1"][COLOR="Silver"]Thinks: should have read to the end of the thread ...[/COLOR][/SIZE]
classicman • Jun 1, 2012 12:32 am
damnit! I tried a couple that didn't work and looked on the list & didn't see it.
:paw:
infinite monkey • Jun 1, 2012 8:49 am
I'm looking for the guy who shot my :paw:

:)
classicman • Jun 12, 2012 12:57 pm
Perspective ...