Facebook IPO

[Grieve]

I think it will depend on how things go with wearable computing. That might make it irrelevant...or it might adapt itself to the new medium. Guess we'll see. I'm holding onto the shares I have (which isn't a lot).

[Vanraw]

I honestly think a better comparison than myspace is Google or Yahoo. Unless something changes they are really in the same business. They sell meaningful clicks. Facebook has the ability to be much more accurate in its targeted advertising. They also hook into Googles search cookies. Try searching for random stuff on google and Amazon. You will start to see FB ads. This is very attractive to people who buy ads.

The question or the gamble in my opinion, is how smart is FB. How will they invest their market capital? Yahoo had the internet search world and ad revenue in its hands, and lost it to google. AOL had messaging and email owned and lost it to Google. Meanwhile Google keeps trying to crack the FB base and fails.

Today FB seems to be investing in some strong infrastructure moves. Building data centers, etc while focused on how to get / keep revenue from mobile / portable applications. This is a good thing in my opinion. The question is revenue and keeping those clicks. The thing to watch is the EPS and the institutional ownership. I was surprised to see only 34%. I take this to mean that if the institutions see FB as the long term for making some money, this stock is going to go up. 34% kinda tells me they are on the sidelines as well.

So FB could be at a google level in 5 years or a Yahoo. Looking at Market Cap, that could be 300b or 29b market cap from the existing 91b. so 300% gain? or dropping to $10 a share?....

I think I am going to pick some up in my IRA for a long gamble right after the next market correction. It would not surprise me to see FB easily hit a $60 a share level or 150b market cap.


Google
Range 900.82 - 907.00
52 week 636.00 - 928.00
Open 903.44
Vol / Avg. 1.72M/2.36M
Mkt cap 302.01B
P/E 27.83
Div/yield -
EPS 32.58
Shares 333.13M
Beta 0.91
Inst. own 71%


FB
Range 37.50 - 38.49
52 week 17.55 - 38.49
Open 37.66
Vol / Avg. 73.06M/63.01M
Mkt cap 91.74B
P/E 191.47
Div/yield -
EPS 0.20
Shares 2.41B
Beta -
Inst. own 34%


Yahoo
Range 27.55 - 28.09
52 week 14.59 - 29.83
Open 28.07
Vol / Avg. 11.86M/21.07M
Mkt cap 29.99B
P/E 7.83
Div/yield -
EPS 3.53
Shares 1.08B
Beta 0.86
Inst. own 77%

[Slamz]

Yeah, I do think social networking is not only here to stay, but will be even more pervasive with newer technology, and Facebook is in a good position to be THE social network of the future.

But as you say, it's their game to lose, just like Yahoo, AOL and MySpace. There's nothing really substantial that I can see holding them in their position of power. They do have momentum, though, and I think that counts for more as more people use the service for long periods of time -- they don't want to redo all their connections even if a newer, better service pops up.


I might have said the same thing about MySpace once too, though. Facebook is another stock I could see either going to outer space or $1 pretty much at any time.

[Vanraw]

I think what they have is market share. The sheer number of people that use it and have an account. Now they could lose them all. It would be pretty easy. But I think they wont.