The beginning of the end for Facebook?

bobblepuzzle

(CNN) -- All signs for Facebook appear to be pointing up.
Mark Zuckerberg is Time's Man of the Year, the movie about him seems likely to be an Oscar winner, and now Goldman Sachs is raising $1.5 billion from its favorite investors on behalf of the social networking company.
At the very same moment, Facebook's only real competitor --NewsCorps' waning social networking site, MySpace -- is shedding employees and expenses, most likely in hopes of a fire sale.
But appearances can be deceiving. In fact, as I read the situation, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Facebook. These aren't the symptoms of a company that is winning, but one that is cashing out.
Indeed, 11 years ago this week, when AOL announced its $350 billion merger with Time Warner, I was asked to write an OpEd for the New York Times explaining what the deal between old and new media companies really meant. I said that AOL was cashing in its over-valued dotcom stock in order to purchase a stake in a "real" media company with movie studios, theme parks and even cable. In short, the deal meant AOL knew their reign was over.
The Times didn't run the piece. Of course, the merger turned out to be a disaster: AOL's revenue stream was reduced to a trickle as net users ventured out onto the Web directly.


Facebook really worth $50 billion?


Facebook's 2011 plans: Hackers wanted
Likewise, Rupert Murdoch's 2005 purchase of MySpace for $580 million coincided pretty much exactly with the website's peak of popularity. People blamed corporate ownership for the social network's demise, but the cycle had already begun.
Now, it's Facebook's turn. This week's news that Goldman Sachs has chosen to invest in Facebook while entreating others to do the same should inspire about as much confidence as their investment in mortgage securities did in 2008. For those who weren't watching, that's when Goldman got rich betting against the investments it was selling.
This time, Goldman is putting up some millions of its own -- as if this skin in the game means they couldn't be up to their old tricks. But the commissions and underwriting fees Goldman is earning for selling that other $1.5 billion of private Facebook shares could be enough to offset the cost of their own investment. And bets against Facebook could be leveraged any number of times.
These are the kinds of points those of us who lived through the AOL-Time Warner merger, the MySpace deal and the rest of the dotcom and real estate crashes now raise about such deals. These are also precisely the kinds of points that don't get addressed under the new, privatized and utterly opaque scheme Goldman has devised on behalf of its client, Facebook.
Unlike a public offering of shares, this private offering to Goldman's clients doesn't obligate Facebook to come clean on its real profits. It doesn't have to submit to standard accounting practice, or indicate how well it's really doing or isn't doing. It gets to remain in the safe cloud of hype that protects all such ventures until they either make a real profit or die trying.
The object of the game, for any one of these ultimately temporary social networks, is to create the illusion that it is different, permanent, invincible and too big to fail. And to be sure, Facebook has gone about as far as any of them has at creating that illusion.
If you were there for Compuserve, AOL, Tripod, Friendster, Orkut, MySpace or LinkedIn, you might have believed the same thing about any one of those social networks. Remember when those CD Roms from AOL came in the mail almost every day? The company was considered ubiquitous, invincible. Former AOL CEO Steve Case was no less a genius than Mark Zuckerberg.
Further confirming that the hype and market has reached its peak, social networking competitor LinkedIn is maneuvering toward its own IPO, which it likely hopes to complete before Facebook eventually gets there and poisons the well. These companies are being valued as if they will be our permanent means for identifying ourselves.
Yet social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It's the people that matter, not the venue. So when the trend leaders of one social niche or another decide the place everyone is socializing has lost its luster or, more important, its exclusivity, they move on to the next one, taking their followers with them. (Facebook's successor will no doubt provide an easy "migration utility" through which you can bring all your so-called friends with you, if you even want to.)
We will move on, just as we did from the chat rooms of AOL, without even looking back. When the place is as ethereal as a website, our allegiance is much more abstract than it is to a local pub or gym. We don't live there, we don't know the owner, and we are all the more ready to be incensed by the latest change to a privacy policy, or to learn that every one of our social connections has been sold to the highest corporate bidder.
So it's not that MySpace lost and Facebook won. It's that MySpace won first, and Facebook won next. They'll go down in the same order.
The longer the company can maintain the illusion of great profits without alienating its user base, the longer they can delay the inevitable decline. But given that Facebook has already begun cashing in its chips, that moment has quite likely arrived.


Interesting take... could it be when Facebooks finances are revealed next year the game is up?? I think so...

Ghandee

bobblepuzzle wrote: »

(CNN) -- All signs for Facebook appear to be pointing up.
Mark Zuckerberg is Time's Man of the Year, the movie about him seems likely to be an Oscar winner, and now Goldman Sachs is raising $1.5 billion from its favorite investors on behalf of the social networking company.
At the very same moment, Facebook's only real competitor --NewsCorps' waning social networking site, MySpace -- is shedding employees and expenses, most likely in hopes of a fire sale.
But appearances can be deceiving. In fact, as I read the situation, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Facebook. These aren't the symptoms of a company that is winning, but one that is cashing out.
Indeed, 11 years ago this week, when AOL announced its $350 billion merger with Time Warner, I was asked to write an OpEd for the New York Times explaining what the deal between old and new media companies really meant. I said that AOL was cashing in its over-valued dotcom stock in order to purchase a stake in a "real" media company with movie studios, theme parks and even cable. In short, the deal meant AOL knew their reign was over.
The Times didn't run the piece. Of course, the merger turned out to be a disaster: AOL's revenue stream was reduced to a trickle as net users ventured out onto the Web directly.



Facebook really worth $50 billion?



Facebook's 2011 plans: Hackers wanted
Likewise, Rupert Murdoch's 2005 purchase of MySpace for $580 million coincided pretty much exactly with the website's peak of popularity. People blamed corporate ownership for the social network's demise, but the cycle had already begun.
Now, it's Facebook's turn. This week's news that Goldman Sachs has chosen to invest in Facebook while entreating others to do the same should inspire about as much confidence as their investment in mortgage securities did in 2008. For those who weren't watching, that's when Goldman got rich betting against the investments it was selling.
This time, Goldman is putting up some millions of its own -- as if this skin in the game means they couldn't be up to their old tricks. But the commissions and underwriting fees Goldman is earning for selling that other $1.5 billion of private Facebook shares could be enough to offset the cost of their own investment. And bets against Facebook could be leveraged any number of times.
These are the kinds of points those of us who lived through the AOL-Time Warner merger, the MySpace deal and the rest of the dotcom and real estate crashes now raise about such deals. These are also precisely the kinds of points that don't get addressed under the new, privatized and utterly opaque scheme Goldman has devised on behalf of its client, Facebook.
Unlike a public offering of shares, this private offering to Goldman's clients doesn't obligate Facebook to come clean on its real profits. It doesn't have to submit to standard accounting practice, or indicate how well it's really doing or isn't doing. It gets to remain in the safe cloud of hype that protects all such ventures until they either make a real profit or die trying.
The object of the game, for any one of these ultimately temporary social networks, is to create the illusion that it is different, permanent, invincible and too big to fail. And to be sure, Facebook has gone about as far as any of them has at creating that illusion.
If you were there for Compuserve, AOL, Tripod, Friendster, Orkut, MySpace or LinkedIn, you might have believed the same thing about any one of those social networks. Remember when those CD Roms from AOL came in the mail almost every day? The company was considered ubiquitous, invincible. Former AOL CEO Steve Case was no less a genius than Mark Zuckerberg.
Further confirming that the hype and market has reached its peak, social networking competitor LinkedIn is maneuvering toward its own IPO, which it likely hopes to complete before Facebook eventually gets there and poisons the well. These companies are being valued as if they will be our permanent means for identifying ourselves.
Yet social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It's the people that matter, not the venue. So when the trend leaders of one social niche or another decide the place everyone is socializing has lost its luster or, more important, its exclusivity, they move on to the next one, taking their followers with them. (Facebook's successor will no doubt provide an easy "migration utility" through which you can bring all your so-called friends with you, if you even want to.)
We will move on, just as we did from the chat rooms of AOL, without even looking back. When the place is as ethereal as a website, our allegiance is much more abstract than it is to a local pub or gym. We don't live there, we don't know the owner, and we are all the more ready to be incensed by the latest change to a privacy policy, or to learn that every one of our social connections has been sold to the highest corporate bidder.
So it's not that MySpace lost and Facebook won. It's that MySpace won first, and Facebook won next. They'll go down in the same order.
The longer the company can maintain the illusion of great profits without alienating its user base, the longer they can delay the inevitable decline. But given that Facebook has already begun cashing in its chips, that moment has quite likely arrived.


Interesting take... could it be when Facebooks finances are revealed next year the game is up?? I think so...

Its true what they say!
Put enough monkeys in a room..........

starbelgrade

bobblepuzzle wrote: »

(CNN) -- All signs for Facebook appear to be pointing up.
Mark Zuckerberg is Time's Man of the Year, the movie about him seems likely to be an Oscar winner, and now Goldman Sachs is raising $1.5 billion from its favorite investors on behalf of the social networking company.
At the very same moment, Facebook's only real competitor --NewsCorps' waning social networking site, MySpace -- is shedding employees and expenses, most likely in hopes of a fire sale.
But appearances can be deceiving. In fact, as I read the situation, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Facebook. These aren't the symptoms of a company that is winning, but one that is cashing out.
Indeed, 11 years ago this week, when AOL announced its $350 billion merger with Time Warner, I was asked to write an OpEd for the New York Times explaining what the deal between old and new media companies really meant. I said that AOL was cashing in its over-valued dotcom stock in order to purchase a stake in a "real" media company with movie studios, theme parks and even cable. In short, the deal meant AOL knew their reign was over.
The Times didn't run the piece. Of course, the merger turned out to be a disaster: AOL's revenue stream was reduced to a trickle as net users ventured out onto the Web directly.


Facebook really worth $50 billion?


Facebook's 2011 plans: Hackers wanted
Likewise, Rupert Murdoch's 2005 purchase of MySpace for $580 million coincided pretty much exactly with the website's peak of popularity. People blamed corporate ownership for the social network's demise, but the cycle had already begun.
Now, it's Facebook's turn. This week's news that Goldman Sachs has chosen to invest in Facebook while entreating others to do the same should inspire about as much confidence as their investment in mortgage securities did in 2008. For those who weren't watching, that's when Goldman got rich betting against the investments it was selling.
This time, Goldman is putting up some millions of its own -- as if this skin in the game means they couldn't be up to their old tricks. But the commissions and underwriting fees Goldman is earning for selling that other $1.5 billion of private Facebook shares could be enough to offset the cost of their own investment. And bets against Facebook could be leveraged any number of times.
These are the kinds of points those of us who lived through the AOL-Time Warner merger, the MySpace deal and the rest of the dotcom and real estate crashes now raise about such deals. These are also precisely the kinds of points that don't get addressed under the new, privatized and utterly opaque scheme Goldman has devised on behalf of its client, Facebook.
Unlike a public offering of shares, this private offering to Goldman's clients doesn't obligate Facebook to come clean on its real profits. It doesn't have to submit to standard accounting practice, or indicate how well it's really doing or isn't doing. It gets to remain in the safe cloud of hype that protects all such ventures until they either make a real profit or die trying.
The object of the game, for any one of these ultimately temporary social networks, is to create the illusion that it is different, permanent, invincible and too big to fail. And to be sure, Facebook has gone about as far as any of them has at creating that illusion.
If you were there for Compuserve, AOL, Tripod, Friendster, Orkut, MySpace or LinkedIn, you might have believed the same thing about any one of those social networks. Remember when those CD Roms from AOL came in the mail almost every day? The company was considered ubiquitous, invincible. Former AOL CEO Steve Case was no less a genius than Mark Zuckerberg.
Further confirming that the hype and market has reached its peak, social networking competitor LinkedIn is maneuvering toward its own IPO, which it likely hopes to complete before Facebook eventually gets there and poisons the well. These companies are being valued as if they will be our permanent means for identifying ourselves.
Yet social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It's the people that matter, not the venue. So when the trend leaders of one social niche or another decide the place everyone is socializing has lost its luster or, more important, its exclusivity, they move on to the next one, taking their followers with them. (Facebook's successor will no doubt provide an easy "migration utility" through which you can bring all your so-called friends with you, if you even want to.)
We will move on, just as we did from the chat rooms of AOL, without even looking back. When the place is as ethereal as a website, our allegiance is much more abstract than it is to a local pub or gym. We don't live there, we don't know the owner, and we are all the more ready to be incensed by the latest change to a privacy policy, or to learn that every one of our social connections has been sold to the highest corporate bidder.
So it's not that MySpace lost and Facebook won. It's that MySpace won first, and Facebook won next. They'll go down in the same order.
The longer the company can maintain the illusion of great profits without alienating its user base, the longer they can delay the inevitable decline. But given that Facebook has already begun cashing in its chips, that moment has quite likely arrived.


Interesting take... could it be when Facebooks finances are revealed next year the game is up?? I think so...

I didn't read any of that.

jd007

I'm way too lazy to even consider reading that

strokemyclover

Chinbook?

Earthhorse

Gucky wrote: »

Its true what they say!
Put enough monkeys in a room..........

starbelgrade wrote: »

I didn't read any of that.

Thanks for quoting that post, guys. I nearly missed it there.

alwaysadub

Damn i was hoping someone else'd read it and give a short version!

mad m

I hope so, but something else will take its place....

alwaysadub

Earthhorse wrote: »

Thanks for quoting that post, guys. I nearly missed it there.

Great fun altogether reading it on a mobile too.

bobblepuzzle

Facebook is apparently worthe €50 Billion, but it has to unveill it's state of affairs next year to shareholders... and they'll see a company in the red...

starbelgrade

bobblepuzzle wrote: »

(CNN) -- All signs for Facebook appear to be pointing up.
Mark Zuckerberg is Time's Man of the Year, the movie about him seems likely to be an Oscar winner, and now Goldman Sachs is raising $1.5 billion from its favorite investors on behalf of the social networking company.
At the very same moment, Facebook's only real competitor --NewsCorps' waning social networking site, MySpace -- is shedding employees and expenses, most likely in hopes of a fire sale.
But appearances can be deceiving. In fact, as I read the situation, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Facebook. These aren't the symptoms of a company that is winning, but one that is cashing out.
Indeed, 11 years ago this week, when AOL announced its $350 billion merger with Time Warner, I was asked to write an OpEd for the New York Times explaining what the deal between old and new media companies really meant. I said that AOL was cashing in its over-valued dotcom stock in order to purchase a stake in a "real" media company with movie studios, theme parks and even cable. In short, the deal meant AOL knew their reign was over.
The Times didn't run the piece. Of course, the merger turned out to be a disaster: AOL's revenue stream was reduced to a trickle as net users ventured out onto the Web directly.


Facebook really worth $50 billion?


Facebook's 2011 plans: Hackers wanted
Likewise, Rupert Murdoch's 2005 purchase of MySpace for $580 million coincided pretty much exactly with the website's peak of popularity. People blamed corporate ownership for the social network's demise, but the cycle had already begun.
Now, it's Facebook's turn. This week's news that Goldman Sachs has chosen to invest in Facebook while entreating others to do the same should inspire about as much confidence as their investment in mortgage securities did in 2008. For those who weren't watching, that's when Goldman got rich betting against the investments it was selling.
This time, Goldman is putting up some millions of its own -- as if this skin in the game means they couldn't be up to their old tricks. But the commissions and underwriting fees Goldman is earning for selling that other $1.5 billion of private Facebook shares could be enough to offset the cost of their own investment. And bets against Facebook could be leveraged any number of times.
These are the kinds of points those of us who lived through the AOL-Time Warner merger, the MySpace deal and the rest of the dotcom and real estate crashes now raise about such deals. These are also precisely the kinds of points that don't get addressed under the new, privatized and utterly opaque scheme Goldman has devised on behalf of its client, Facebook.
Unlike a public offering of shares, this private offering to Goldman's clients doesn't obligate Facebook to come clean on its real profits. It doesn't have to submit to standard accounting practice, or indicate how well it's really doing or isn't doing. It gets to remain in the safe cloud of hype that protects all such ventures until they either make a real profit or die trying.
The object of the game, for any one of these ultimately temporary social networks, is to create the illusion that it is different, permanent, invincible and too big to fail. And to be sure, Facebook has gone about as far as any of them has at creating that illusion.
If you were there for Compuserve, AOL, Tripod, Friendster, Orkut, MySpace or LinkedIn, you might have believed the same thing about any one of those social networks. Remember when those CD Roms from AOL came in the mail almost every day? The company was considered ubiquitous, invincible. Former AOL CEO Steve Case was no less a genius than Mark Zuckerberg.
Further confirming that the hype and market has reached its peak, social networking competitor LinkedIn is maneuvering toward its own IPO, which it likely hopes to complete before Facebook eventually gets there and poisons the well. These companies are being valued as if they will be our permanent means for identifying ourselves.
Yet social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It's the people that matter, not the venue. So when the trend leaders of one social niche or another decide the place everyone is socializing has lost its luster or, more important, its exclusivity, they move on to the next one, taking their followers with them. (Facebook's successor will no doubt provide an easy "migration utility" through which you can bring all your so-called friends with you, if you even want to.)
We will move on, just as we did from the chat rooms of AOL, without even looking back. When the place is as ethereal as a website, our allegiance is much more abstract than it is to a local pub or gym. We don't live there, we don't know the owner, and we are all the more ready to be incensed by the latest change to a privacy policy, or to learn that every one of our social connections has been sold to the highest corporate bidder.
So it's not that MySpace lost and Facebook won. It's that MySpace won first, and Facebook won next. They'll go down in the same order.
The longer the company can maintain the illusion of great profits without alienating its user base, the longer they can delay the inevitable decline. But given that Facebook has already begun cashing in its chips, that moment has quite likely arrived.


Interesting take... could it be when Facebooks finances are revealed next year the game is up?? I think so...

Earthhorse wrote: »

Thanks for quoting that post, guys. I nearly missed it there.

No probs.

deman

bobblepuzzle wrote: »

(CNN) -- All signs for Facebook appear to be pointing up.
Mark Zuckerberg is Time's Man of the Year, the movie about him seems likely to be an Oscar winner, and now Goldman Sachs is raising $1.5 billion from its favorite investors on behalf of the social networking company.
At the very same moment, Facebook's only real competitor --NewsCorps' waning social networking site, MySpace -- is shedding employees and expenses, most likely in hopes of a fire sale.
But appearances can be deceiving. In fact, as I read the situation, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Facebook. These aren't the symptoms of a company that is winning, but one that is cashing out.
Indeed, 11 years ago this week, when AOL announced its $350 billion merger with Time Warner, I was asked to write an OpEd for the New York Times explaining what the deal between old and new media companies really meant. I said that AOL was cashing in its over-valued dotcom stock in order to purchase a stake in a "real" media company with movie studios, theme parks and even cable. In short, the deal meant AOL knew their reign was over.
The Times didn't run the piece. Of course, the merger turned out to be a disaster: AOL's revenue stream was reduced to a trickle as net users ventured out onto the Web directly.


Facebook really worth $50 billion?


Facebook's 2011 plans: Hackers wanted
Likewise, Rupert Murdoch's 2005 purchase of MySpace for $580 million coincided pretty much exactly with the website's peak of popularity. People blamed corporate ownership for the social network's demise, but the cycle had already begun.
Now, it's Facebook's turn. This week's news that Goldman Sachs has chosen to invest in Facebook while entreating others to do the same should inspire about as much confidence as their investment in mortgage securities did in 2008. For those who weren't watching, that's when Goldman got rich betting against the investments it was selling.
This time, Goldman is putting up some millions of its own -- as if this skin in the game means they couldn't be up to their old tricks. But the commissions and underwriting fees Goldman is earning for selling that other $1.5 billion of private Facebook shares could be enough to offset the cost of their own investment. And bets against Facebook could be leveraged any number of times.
These are the kinds of points those of us who lived through the AOL-Time Warner merger, the MySpace deal and the rest of the dotcom and real estate crashes now raise about such deals. These are also precisely the kinds of points that don't get addressed under the new, privatized and utterly opaque scheme Goldman has devised on behalf of its client, Facebook.
Unlike a public offering of shares, this private offering to Goldman's clients doesn't obligate Facebook to come clean on its real profits. It doesn't have to submit to standard accounting practice, or indicate how well it's really doing or isn't doing. It gets to remain in the safe cloud of hype that protects all such ventures until they either make a real profit or die trying.
The object of the game, for any one of these ultimately temporary social networks, is to create the illusion that it is different, permanent, invincible and too big to fail. And to be sure, Facebook has gone about as far as any of them has at creating that illusion.
If you were there for Compuserve, AOL, Tripod, Friendster, Orkut, MySpace or LinkedIn, you might have believed the same thing about any one of those social networks. Remember when those CD Roms from AOL came in the mail almost every day? The company was considered ubiquitous, invincible. Former AOL CEO Steve Case was no less a genius than Mark Zuckerberg.
Further confirming that the hype and market has reached its peak, social networking competitor LinkedIn is maneuvering toward its own IPO, which it likely hopes to complete before Facebook eventually gets there and poisons the well. These companies are being valued as if they will be our permanent means for identifying ourselves.
Yet social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It's the people that matter, not the venue. So when the trend leaders of one social niche or another decide the place everyone is socializing has lost its luster or, more important, its exclusivity, they move on to the next one, taking their followers with them. (Facebook's successor will no doubt provide an easy "migration utility" through which you can bring all your so-called friends with you, if you even want to.)
We will move on, just as we did from the chat rooms of AOL, without even looking back. When the place is as ethereal as a website, our allegiance is much more abstract than it is to a local pub or gym. We don't live there, we don't know the owner, and we are all the more ready to be incensed by the latest change to a privacy policy, or to learn that every one of our social connections has been sold to the highest corporate bidder.
So it's not that MySpace lost and Facebook won. It's that MySpace won first, and Facebook won next. They'll go down in the same order.
The longer the company can maintain the illusion of great profits without alienating its user base, the longer they can delay the inevitable decline. But given that Facebook has already begun cashing in its chips, that moment has quite likely arrived.


Interesting take... could it be when Facebooks finances are revealed next year the game is up?? I think so...

No

Earthhorse

alwaysadub wrote: »

Damn i was hoping someone else'd read it and give a short version!

Some guy is predicting Facebook is going to fail because he has column inches to fill.

I didn't actually read the article though, I'm just guessing.

Lemsiper

bobblepuzzle wrote: »

(CNN) -- All signs for Facebook appear to be pointing up.
Mark Zuckerberg is Time's Man of the Year, the movie about him seems likely to be an Oscar winner, and now Goldman Sachs is raising $1.5 billion from its favorite investors on behalf of the social networking company.
At the very same moment, Facebook's only real competitor --NewsCorps' waning social networking site, MySpace -- is shedding employees and expenses, most likely in hopes of a fire sale.
But appearances can be deceiving. In fact, as I read the situation, we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Facebook. These aren't the symptoms of a company that is winning, but one that is cashing out.
Indeed, 11 years ago this week, when AOL announced its $350 billion merger with Time Warner, I was asked to write an OpEd for the New York Times explaining what the deal between old and new media companies really meant. I said that AOL was cashing in its over-valued dotcom stock in order to purchase a stake in a "real" media company with movie studios, theme parks and even cable. In short, the deal meant AOL knew their reign was over.
The Times didn't run the piece. Of course, the merger turned out to be a disaster: AOL's revenue stream was reduced to a trickle as net users ventured out onto the Web directly.


Facebook really worth $50 billion?


Facebook's 2011 plans: Hackers wanted
Likewise, Rupert Murdoch's 2005 purchase of MySpace for $580 million coincided pretty much exactly with the website's peak of popularity. People blamed corporate ownership for the social network's demise, but the cycle had already begun.
Now, it's Facebook's turn. This week's news that Goldman Sachs has chosen to invest in Facebook while entreating others to do the same should inspire about as much confidence as their investment in mortgage securities did in 2008. For those who weren't watching, that's when Goldman got rich betting against the investments it was selling.
This time, Goldman is putting up some millions of its own -- as if this skin in the game means they couldn't be up to their old tricks. But the commissions and underwriting fees Goldman is earning for selling that other $1.5 billion of private Facebook shares could be enough to offset the cost of their own investment. And bets against Facebook could be leveraged any number of times.
These are the kinds of points those of us who lived through the AOL-Time Warner merger, the MySpace deal and the rest of the dotcom and real estate crashes now raise about such deals. These are also precisely the kinds of points that don't get addressed under the new, privatized and utterly opaque scheme Goldman has devised on behalf of its client, Facebook.
Unlike a public offering of shares, this private offering to Goldman's clients doesn't obligate Facebook to come clean on its real profits. It doesn't have to submit to standard accounting practice, or indicate how well it's really doing or isn't doing. It gets to remain in the safe cloud of hype that protects all such ventures until they either make a real profit or die trying.
The object of the game, for any one of these ultimately temporary social networks, is to create the illusion that it is different, permanent, invincible and too big to fail. And to be sure, Facebook has gone about as far as any of them has at creating that illusion.
If you were there for Compuserve, AOL, Tripod, Friendster, Orkut, MySpace or LinkedIn, you might have believed the same thing about any one of those social networks. Remember when those CD Roms from AOL came in the mail almost every day? The company was considered ubiquitous, invincible. Former AOL CEO Steve Case was no less a genius than Mark Zuckerberg.
Further confirming that the hype and market has reached its peak, social networking competitor LinkedIn is maneuvering toward its own IPO, which it likely hopes to complete before Facebook eventually gets there and poisons the well. These companies are being valued as if they will be our permanent means for identifying ourselves.
Yet social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It's the people that matter, not the venue. So when the trend leaders of one social niche or another decide the place everyone is socializing has lost its luster or, more important, its exclusivity, they move on to the next one, taking their followers with them. (Facebook's successor will no doubt provide an easy "migration utility" through which you can bring all your so-called friends with you, if you even want to.)
We will move on, just as we did from the chat rooms of AOL, without even looking back. When the place is as ethereal as a website, our allegiance is much more abstract than it is to a local pub or gym. We don't live there, we don't know the owner, and we are all the more ready to be incensed by the latest change to a privacy policy, or to learn that every one of our social connections has been sold to the highest corporate bidder.
So it's not that MySpace lost and Facebook won. It's that MySpace won first, and Facebook won next. They'll go down in the same order.
The longer the company can maintain the illusion of great profits without alienating its user base, the longer they can delay the inevitable decline. But given that Facebook has already begun cashing in its chips, that moment has quite likely arrived.


Interesting take... could it be when Facebooks finances are revealed next year the game is up?? I think so...

sounds like bull**** to me.

the whole year inn

facebook screwed,next site on the horizon,gob_smacked next billionare.

TimeToShine

TL DR

FACEBOOK IS OVERVALUED, WILL BE SOLD TO CASH OUT AND DISSOLVE INTO NOTHINGNESS

msg11

Facebook is lethal it will never close or become like bebo . Once your man Mark is left in charge the site should be alright , take him out of the hot seat and it will fall apart in a few weeks.

Absurdum

damn if facebook closes, where will i stalk girls?????? apart from here like?

stovelid

It's a site I put some photos and updates on for relatives and friends to see what I'm up to and vice versa.

If it goes, I'll use the next one. Or maybe not.

Who gives a shit?

the whole year inn

Mark Zuckerberg gives 26 billion sh!ts

Vinta81

Paragraphs are your friend!

Dman001

It has reached its peak, the only way is down now for Facebook. What they are focusing on now is keeping the users on Facebook (rather than attract new users), and not let them lead off to another Social Networking site.

They are constantly updating the website, and adding new features to keep the website fresh which is what they need to do. I had a look on Bebo the other day and it is the very same as it was 4 years ago, where as Facebook has changed considerably even in the last year. MySpace has barely changed either, and that's why people left for something new. Change is the key to keep users around, and Facebook know this.

But as I said, they have reached there peak. All it will take is a few users moving to something new and different, and the crowd will move with them.

Mr Trade In

Facebook is worth $50 Billion Dollars*




*

US$ now valued at .0000000000000001 Euro

Cheap Thrills!

It reckons Facebook has peaked. Goldman Sachs want in, which apparently the writer considers the kiss of death.
Says same happened to AOL and MySpace when they were at their peaks.
Emperor has no clothes etc

Trog

The OP has a point. The main reason for facebook's explosive initial success was that it didn't bombard its users with ads etc., at the cost of not making any profit for quite a few years. Instead it concentrated on making sure it had the best features and best interface for users (from a design and usability perspective). Now there as big as they are, it wouldn't be a bad time to cash out.

But that's assuming your plan is to just cash out big, and not to try to keep this thing going. If they were going to do that,wouldn't they have done it at 10 bn? or at least at some stage before now? They have, instead, been gradually introducing revenue producing factors to the site, like ads, selling people's information to 3rd parties, and now you can even pay for your group to get prominent placing in the suggestions boxes (just like you can pay 3rd parties to raise the profile of your website on search engines). So I'd say you're barking up the wrong tree, OP, I reckon facebook is looking to stay the dominant social networking site while still producing revenue. It's never been done before, but nobody's ever had the same well established user base either.

123balltv

a stalking site is worth 50 billion :eek:

Richard Noggin

They should show how many times certain people viewed your profile before they go bust, just to cause chaos.

Andy-Pandy

facebook does not value itself, the market does. Facebook is a part of society now, it has become an integral part of peoples life. Saying facebook is at its end is like saying mobile phones are on there way out. People will always use facebook now, who would want to have to build up there contact lists again?

Saila

:eek: maybe the housing market will go next..or enron maybe?

that'll never happen. Its hit its peak, employers will no longer stand people twittering and ****, in these times people have to actually work or get fired, there is a queue out there!

its gone..thankfully.

El Horseboxo

<retarded stupid fúcking comment>

Now thank the fúck outta it like it gets you off.

My name is URL

I dunno.. but GeoCiies sold for $5 Billion in 1999. It's not inconcievable that FB will be outdone in the near future given our own history in outgrowing certain things. When a tsunami hits it's usually a sign that something has already happened which demands a reaction.. it's just your money that's left floating in the waves of ****.

thetonynator

Bebo sold for $800 million to AOL and look what happened to that . . .facebook won't last, there'll be another craze and that will take over and facebook will eventually disappear.

Geansai Rua

Hopefully its on the way out!!!

Only to be replaced by some other total shoite..

patwicklow

noseyparker BOOK??:D

thenakedanddead

Awful an expression as it is, never has the phrase "cool story bro" been more warranted

paulosham

Friendface and Chitter are the next big thing.

OctavarIan

Facebook won't be going anywhere, it's an integral part of Zuckerberg's plan to funnel the web through his social net. There is nothing bigger coming to knock it off its perch.

mickydoomsux

OctavarIan wrote: »

Facebook won't be going anywhere, it's an integral part of Zuckerberg's plan to funnel the web through his social net. There is nothing bigger coming to knock it off its perch.

Other than people losing interest when they realise it's utterly worthless and completely pointless.

These things are for people who can't use the internet. These types are flighty by nature. They'll latch on to the next internet fad that the media tells them to like and Facebook will end up in the same graveyard as Geocities, mySpace, Bebo et al.

i57dwun4yb1pt8

cockbook,
titbook ?

OctavarIan

mickydoomsux wrote: »

Other than people losing interest when they realise it's utterly worthless and completely pointless.

These things are for people who can't use the internet. These types are flighty by nature. They'll latch on to the next internet fad that the media tells them to like and Facebook will end up in the same graveyard as Geocities, mySpace, Bebo et al.

Wrong.

Facebook is a completely different entity to Geocities, MySpace, Bebo etc.

Read this Forbes article and do a Google search for Zuckerberg's Social Graph.

bobblepuzzle

I would agree with a thread that says basically '**** facebook, everyone on this thread ends their account'

Cheap Thrills!

Andy-Pandy wrote: »

facebook does not value itself, the market does. Facebook is a part of society now, it has become an integral part of peoples life. Saying facebook is at its end is like saying mobile phones are on there way out. People will always use facebook now, who would want to have to build up there contact lists again?

It happened with AOL which a decade ago was a relatively huge online community in the Uk and US and worldwide.

At the time that was inconceivable but then came broadband and AOL's USP (its own user friendly online environment) was no longer unique.

Not saying it definitely will happen with facebook but it's possible.

mickydoomsux

OctavarIan wrote: »

Facebook is a completely different entity to Geocities, MySpace, Bebo etc.

No it isn't. It more useless, flavour-of-the-month, pointless, social networking twattery.

I don't care about how much Zuckerberg and his fanboys try to big up their product. It's just people hyping something that isn't actually anything, again.

If Facebook just ceased to exist tomorrow it wouldn't matter. It has no value.

OctavarIan

mickydoomsux wrote: »

No it isn't. It more useless, flavour-of-the-month, pointless, social networking twattery.

So did you not understand his business model or are you just being flippant?

mickydoomsux wrote:

I don't care about how much Zuckerberg and his fanboys try to big up their product. It's just people hyping something that isn't actually anything, again.

Ah, so it was both of the above.

mickydoomsux wrote:

If Facebook just ceased to exist tomorrow it wouldn't matter. It has no value.

it would matter to the considerable number of people who use it as a means of communication, and as a platform for advertising and business.

The tendrils are creeping out as we speak, interaction with the Facebook platform from outside the Facebook website are nearly doubling month on month, currently standing at around 250 million. Whatever your personal issues with the business are, they're not going anywhere soon.

tony1kenobi

Earthhorse wrote: »

Some guy is predicting Facebook is going to fail because he has column inches to fill.

I didn't actually read the article though, I'm just guessing.

You completely left out the part where the lesbian ninjas wiped out the robot zombies.It's near the end.

the whole year inn

it could happen,easily enough.A so called big company goes bust yea!!

nyarlothothep

I surely would like to see facebook fall. The technology is so invasive that in the wrong hands the consequences for privacy and civil liberties could be damning. So much power concentrated in such a small circle. The only thing that will destroy FB is a more universally appealing idea, given the immaterial nature of the internet that outcome is very possible.

mickydoomsux

nyarlothothep wrote: »

The technology is so invasive....

Only because you let it be.

People really shouldn't complain about their details/pictures/thoughts being on the net when they put them on there themselves in the first place. I can google my name and location and find nothing about myself because i've never used my real name or posted a picture of myself on any website.