Facebook Going Public Today

[Robin]

So in a few hours Facebook lists on the stock exchange valued at around $100 billion for company which has only existed for 8 years.

There has been lots of debate on its potential to make future revenue what with GM admitting a few days ago that its advertising on the site didn't sell any cars.

So what are peoples thoughts on this? Can it keep going or is it already starting to wane and will it be better or worse when controlled by shareholders?

 

[Omnis]

It'll probably turn into Yahoo 2.0 eventually. At least they weren't bought by Viacom. That's always a death sentence.

 

[TankAss95]

Soon they will replace birth certificates with Facebook accounts.

 

[Matty]

And replace death certificates with RIP pages..

 

[Robin]

I think its going to be hard to keep people if they are going to have to push more targeted advertising towards them especially on mobile devices. I could even imagine a point where they start charging fee's to do certain things. 'Look what happened to MySpace' is probably going to be on lots of peoples minds today.

 

[Liquid]

I've never seen an advert on Facebook for Android. Not one.

What sort of things might they start charging for? I don't use any of the silly apps or games on Facebook, I just post and stalk.

 

[Robin]

I've never seen an advert on Facebook for Android. Not one.

That's the thing, there are no adverts on mobile Facebook but now nearly half of all visits to the site come from mobile devices.

So its pretty certain advertising on the mobile site will be one of the first things Facebook do after going public because they are loosing a huge amount of potential revenue. The news has been talking about this point endlessly.

What sort of things might they start charging for? I don't use any of the silly apps or games on Facebook, I just post and stalk.

Plenty of potential stuff, Twitter has already started offering 'featured tweets' for a fee.

 

[Liquid]

That's the thing, there are no adverts on mobile Facebook but now nearly half of all visits to the site come from mobile devices.

So its pretty certain advertising on the mobile site will be one of the first things Facebook do after going public because they are loosing a huge amount of potential revenue. The news has been talking about this point endlessly.

Fair enough. Could we be seeing something similar to GTP? Pay for a premium account in order to not see adverts?

Plenty of potential stuff, Twitter has already started offering 'featured tweets' for a fee.

Don't use Twitter so I don't know what that means. I don't think I myself would be personally interested in 'featured updates'. Not that interested in the stati of people except the 20 or so I give a damn about.

 

[Robin]

Fair enough. Could we be seeing something similar to GTP? Pay for a premium account in order to not see adverts?

You never know, probably!

Some witty tweets been going around the web today which I saw on the telegraph website...

"Why is Facebook going public? They couldn't figure out the privacy settings either."

"Nationalise Facebook. Give it to Spain. Spain gives it to its banks. They are solvent. Eurocrisis over. Later, give FB back."

 

[photonrider]

I think the wittiest I've heard so far is : Now you can lose your money where you lose your time.

But, time . . is money.

Unpredictable product - people. Unpredictable medium - communications technology. The trick is to buy low, sell high. Do as Mark does, not as he says.

 

[RTSolvalou]

All the investors thought they were going to be able to sell off their IPO stock for much more on day 1, I found it amusing, all of them were humiliated.
That's what they get for being an 'expert', blindness towards the true worth.

 

[Robin]

^Yeah the IPO pretty much bombed , people where thinking it would hit $70 within the first hour and it ended up falling off a cliff nearly going under the start price if it wasn't for the banks buying huge amounts of stock to keep it level.

Also Zuckerberg gets married the day after, the guy is pretty nuts!

 

[ExigeEvan]

^Yeah the IPO pretty much bombed , people where thinking it would hit $70 within the first hour and it ended up falling off a cliff nearly going under the start price if it wasn't for the banks buying huge amounts of stock to keep it level.

Also Zuckerberg gets married the day after, the guy is pretty nuts!

They priced it at the high side to begin with, anyone serious is really going to consider valuing a company that has relatively low income and rather volatile income streams at $104 Billion.

It held it's value, that's a modest expectation. I'm just glad a lot of shareholders got a chance to cash in, finally.

 

[Grayfox]

And replace death certificates with RIP pages..

Wrong.

They will be replaced with a 404 page with some witty remark like "Person not found" or similar.

 

[Dotini]

They say a fool and his money are soon parted. It seems Zuckerberg and Morgan Stanley will soon have to face investigations and lawsuits.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18180861#

You know every state in the union is short of money, and I'm guessing state attorneys general will be licking their chops over the prospects of getting their mitts on Mark and his fresh, hot money.

Respectfully submitted,
Steve

 

[Dennisch]

I heard that too, today on Dutch radio. Billion dollar lawsuit coming up! And maybe even more.

Did the stock price drop after this?

Slightly up now, just over 32$

 

[Borna12345]

I was expecting something similar to Google's publification as a company but it seems not.

 

[photonrider]

Locked-down FB shares went on sale today; last I heard the price is down around 5%. Will it plummet further? What would be the best time to buy?