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Facebook Expected To Go Public Next Week
First time accepted submitter foozie writes "Many credible sources, including Forbes and CBS, say that Facebook will finally IPO next week, raising about $10 billion and valuating at $75 billion, almost three times the valuation of Google at the point of their IPO in 2004. This shift raises questions about how the new ownership will affect the company's ability to innovate and remain on the forefront of social media."
Innovate? I think we're already past that with Facebook, no?
If you're looking for innovation, personally, I'd look elsewhere -- Way past the social-network situation that we see graying at a rapid rate.
This shift raises questions about how the new ownership will affect the company's ability to innovate and remain on the forefront of social media
Yes, that's exactly what I thought. Well, actually what I thought was 'I wonder how much money the investors in the Goldman Sachs Facebook fund will make out of this bubble,' but your version sounds better.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Since when has Facebook innovated since its creation?
shifting around the GUI elements every few months is NOT innovation.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
It won't IPO next week. It might *file* for it. Sigh.
This just sounds like a cashout opportunity with the IPO folks holding the bag.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
This headline and summary are totally incorrect. The story is that Facebook is going to FILE for an IPO, which is a big difference from actually going public. It will be months before that actually happens. For any gullible readers, you won't be able to buy or sell FB shares next week.
Once again, come to slashdot to see news stories mangled up beyond recognition by incompetent editors.
There's been virtually no inflation since 2005 in the US, so that's not a factor here. Prices for some things have gone up, but there hasn't been any real inflation, at least not based on any official numbers.
-Ted http://www.freemathhelp.com/
I am having trouble remember what innovation we ever actually saw out of Facebook. I vaguely recall that they contributed some patches to a few open source projects, and I thought that they had done some research on distributed computing but I cannot seem to find that paper. Perhaps "past that" should be "never saw that?"
Palm trees and 8
Buy "put" options. Keep in mind that these expire after some amount of time, so you have to be able to predict how quickly the price will fall. Also, I would not be so quick to assume that Facebook is overhyped; they have a lot of data that they can sell, a lot of advertising power, etc.; it is like claiming that Google is overhyped.
Palm trees and 8
and who will be the 'bookrunner' for this IPO? who will suck up untold millions of dollars, while hundreds of thousands of joe blow investors get screwed by the IPO process? who are the favored few hedge funders and well-connected who get to make a lifetime's savings in a few seconds simply for knowing the right people?
is it Goldman Sachs, is it Merrill Lynch? Morgan Stanley?
Well, there is one thing we know for sure: the Bookrunner would not exist, unless you, your tax dollars, bailed them out in 2008. Because god knows, without these hard working wall street guys and hedge fund managers skimming tens of millions off of the process of an IPO, there is no way that we could ever have innovation or progress.
and everything that the lives of ordinary people depend on, there has been no inflation.
oh wait, maybe the modern 'science' of economics is a gigantic pile of horse shit? maybe 'inflation' is a political number manipulated by assholes at the Fed in order to support various fucked up ideologies, policies that benefit the already rich, and whichever corrupt bribery machine happens to be in power at the moment?
They sell ads. And it looks like their ad revenues has some space to grow.
I'd be more concerned about how they intend to keep their ever moving customers from moving to the next big thing once it appears on the horizon.
Rethinking email
I'd say the timing has to do with the Ceglia case.
With a recent judicial decision to sanction Ceglia, Facebook most likely believes they are in the endgame of that suit and can move forward with an IPO without the suit causing problems.
Think about it. Would you file for a $75B IPO (or whatever bullshit figure they've come up with) if there was an open suit with someone claiming they own half of the founder's shares, and backing it up with a signed contract?
Who bought those Goldman Sachs shares?
This is private information, so won't be disclosed. The public filing will just say that GS owns 10% (or whatever) of the company. The people who own the shares in the fund do not have to be disclosed.
Who at the SEC decided that these 'non-shares' that Goldman's wanted to sell were garbage enough not to be sold in the USA, but somehow could be sold outside the USA?
My understanding is that nobody did. Someone at GS decided that not selling them in the USA let them avoid the need to bother with SEC approval.
So will this shadowy group of Goldman's customers now manipulate the IPO?
Possibly, although I suspect that the IPO means that GS has decided that the bubble is now over. They hyped the shares, sold them to their preferred customers (at a big profit) hyped them some more, got their customers to sell them to other people, and now they have no further interest in Facebook. It can go public, people can review its books, and it could file for chapter 11 next week for all GS cares. They've moved onto the next bubble.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
It's a sucker game, actually
Back in the 1980's when Al Gore proclaimed the "Information Super Highway" there had been more hype than everything else combined
There were so many example of Net venture wasted all the money being pumped into them, and yet, the financial world never learn
Take search engines for example
The was Altavista, and people was like goo-goo and gaa-gaa all over it
Then Yahoo came along, and the goo-goo gaa-gaa people flocked to it
When Google arrived, Yahoo withered
Take "community", for example
There was "The-Well", AOL, tripod, whathaveyous
How many of them are still left, today?
How many BILLIONS have they wasted?
I do not have a crystal ball, but I can tell you that FB will be just like any of the above-mentioned, and the billions pumped into it would be wasted
I can't remember how much $$$
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
...I'd like to know how much ad revenue have they generated in the past year, which would be a small fraction of it's valuation....
To extend on those remarks, two years ago the entire online advertising market was about $25B annually, with about half that going to GOOG for search placement. Old timers like myself will be surprised that only about a third of the online ad market is banner ads. I suppose adblocker-type technology will eventually completely kill off that market segment, or at least I hope it does. Anyway, FB can only be a small fraction of $10B ad revenue.
In normal market conditions companies used to sell for P.E. ratios in the single digit-ish range, but for a couple decades ultra high PE ratios have taken over. Once the baby boomers cash in their 401Ks that'll drop back to normal. Anyway it would not be all that out of line for a couple billion in revenue to account for a couple dozen billion in valuation.
Also the data they have is useful for spam services that are not online. Expect it to be mandatory to link your postal spam mail address and your social security number to your FB account, supposedly to cut down on griefers and spammers, but more likely to make the data they have on you more valuable.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
It's the beginning of the end for facebook. I know people have been predicting that forever, but now it's as certain as the pull of gravity.
Once it's gone public, the pressure to maximize short term profits will force their hand, and really put the screw on the user.
Internal bureaucracy, not innovation is dominant for a company at this stage of its life, and totally dependent on the network effect (must remain above critical mass or else). /popcorn
Facebook is going to be torn apart by tidal forces, and there is nothing anyone can do about it.
This is it. As soon as an IPO is done the owners will begin to lose control and probably get forced out the "suits". See Ted Turner as an example. Personally I think Facebook has "jumped the shark". Only old people hang out there anymore and since I can't stand old gossips, or gossips in general, I avoid it. Not to mention the crappy ads and the security breeches.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
I have a bad feeling about this. This type of IPO hype strongly reminds me of the previous Web 1.0 collapse and the timing would be right for FB to maximize it's peak on the market.
...I'd like to know how much ad revenue have they generated in the past year, which would be a small fraction of it's valuation....
To extend on those remarks, two years ago the entire online advertising market was about $25B annually, with about half that going to GOOG for search placement. Old timers like myself will be surprised that only about a third of the online ad market is banner ads. I suppose adblocker-type technology will eventually completely kill off that market segment, or at least I hope it does. Anyway, FB can only be a small fraction of $10B ad revenue.
In normal market conditions companies used to sell for P.E. ratios in the single digit-ish range, but for a couple decades ultra high PE ratios have taken over. Once the baby boomers cash in their 401Ks that'll drop back to normal. Anyway it would not be all that out of line for a couple billion in revenue to account for a couple dozen billion in valuation.
Also the data they have is useful for spam services that are not online. Expect it to be mandatory to link your postal spam mail address and your social security number to your FB account, supposedly to cut down on griefers and spammers, but more likely to make the data they have on you more valuable.
Facebook has become a giant in web advertising. Their revenue was estimated at $3.8 billion in 2011 (slightly lower than their own prediction of $4b), and to reach $7b next year (2013). Similar numbers have been reported many places, but one source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?R=1008598
Total online ad market is at $31b, so Facebook has 12% market share of the global online ad market. source: http://www.iab.net/insights_research/industry_data_and_landscape/1675/1816825 . Their market share of users and time is even higher than that - 16% -- source: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/facebook/facebook-is-destroying-google-in-time-spent-online-chart/4183
Comment removed based on user account deletion
. . . for "It's Pretty much Over", isn't it?
They're forcing themselves to use Timeline and there's no other choice. Duh. Old news.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
$2 billion in 2010, around $4 billion for 2011(around half a billion from Facebook credits). At least according to this Bloomberg article. I don't know what their costs are though.