MSU Red Cedar Message Board

Google still hasn't come up with a way to dethrone it yet and they are probably the best bet. It's probably got at least a couple more years.

Facebook has peaked IMHO as far as usage. I rarely use it anymore and many of my friends don't use it much anymore. Facebook is also implementing a lot of changes ( have u seen the "timeline" garbage? ) which alienate the user base. As far as I am aware the last time Facebook tried to use more of users personal info it was met with a LOT of backlash. ( if I remember correctly) I can't look it up right now to make sure.

This. I'm thinking that facebook will be grossly overvalued at their IPO. Aren't all of the other tech IPOs flopping right now (Linkedin, groupon, pandora)?

Two of my cousins I follow (and have since unsubscribed from because I couldn't take it anymore) are 14, and holy crap, they live their lives on Facebook. No one cares what adults do, as I think our interest has peaked. But I know my cousins aren't the only two young teens using FB all the time. There's tons of them, and there's lots of $$$ to be made.

If the IPO comes out and the market cap turns out to be $100-$150 Billion (haven't seen them in a while, but this was the range of FB's IPO estimates last time I checked), I'm going to liquidate some assets and buy puts. You would figure that FB has to make $8B-$10B in perpetuity (with growth to account for inflation) in order for it to be valued at that level.

It's gonna be the next Groupon. You start digging into their books and everything is ass backwards.

Twitter is gaining a lot of steam, I wouldn't do it.

Facebook is the better site, but it's been ruined for a lot of people because of obnoxious people. You could always delete these people, but it's a whole lot easier to simply not follow back.

Yeah, Twitter has some useful purpose, but I just don't really see how it will ever make money. A large amount of Twitter accounts are fake names and such.

Facebook will survive simply because it serves to connect families.

And timeline was made to make it easier for advertisers to target you. If you do not click at a high enough rate on FB ads, then FB's stock price (and FB) will crash, thus the need to establish timeline to better track you and you behaviors.

Well, I certainly wouldn't expect any type of yield. Can't think of a similar company who has ever paid a dividend.

The company made about $1B in profits last year. Google makes that in about 2 weeks.

Maybe they figure out a way to monetize their user base, but if they don't, then they're destined to be small potatoes.

You think facebook is different? I have 6 or 7 right now ( all but one I don't use) because it FB gaming it was a nice advantage. ( oh and yeah before you hate on number of accounts, I was making real $$ off of FB gaming) There were quite a few people that would sell lots of 100 FB accounts for like $30 because if you knew how to use them right you could make $100 at least out of them. ( Keep in mind every part of the world is on facebook basically so for some that's a really good take) I was mainly involved in Mafia Wars, ( Zynga game, I need to check out how their IPO or stock did) and it was rare to find people that really only had 1 FB account. It really boosts facebook's numbers but literally 1000's upon 1000's of fake accounts. ( MW at it's peak had 24 million players monthly, now has 2.4 mil) Then take into account that many scammers, spammers, and others of their ilk have a lot of fake facebook pages as well and you are talking serious numbers here. This may get exposed eventually, but who knows? I will list some things I know about FB but please keep in mind I am not a stock guy, so you have to use your judgement with the info I have.

Facebook Revenue primarily relies on ( as far as I understand)

1. Ads
2. Purchases made on site ( Games primarily but there may be others.)

1. If advertisers page per view then there should be good potential here always, but pay per click is more iffy.
2. The gaming purchases especially are very hard to project for the future. FB gets an apple size cut if memory serves me correctly ( 30%?) The problem is that each game has it's own lifecycle. They are addictive and people end up spending money on them, but after awhile the user get bored with it. The are made ( especially Zynga games) to be pay to advance ( advance at an accelerated rate vs non pay) That works fine and dandy when it's still got it's buzz but once the game maker makes enough changes or enough users get tired of basically spamming their friends they lose a customer. ( in most cases I have seen, they lose that customer completely and it's hard to get them back since most get upset to the point where they swear off paying entirely)

Side Note: If you have the Zynga Stock/IPO I would seriously consider not keeping it, Zynga is increasingly seen as a profit driven company ( looks good to investors but a Horrible PR situation) and most of their games require you to SPAM your friends to advance. It has gotten to the point where a lot of people have said they will delete friends who post their games. They only have so long without changing their means and when they change it they will have to change some things that keep people buying stuff from them. It's just my opinion, but I have been through the rise and fall of one of their popular games and let me tell you Zynga lost a lot of customers for good with their utter mishandling of things. ( Basically their was an entire secondary economy for buy/sell in game item and Zynga thought it cut into their profits so they got greedy and changed the game to limit the secondary sellers/buyers and that only paying a high price to them would get you ahead. they currently are at 10% of their peak users and they probably still don't realize what they did to screw it up. Their greed will be the downfall unless they turn to other revenue sources ( Ads of some sort? really only thing to make it ever worth anything in the future)

Anyway, I mention Zynga in part to say, the same thing will happen to facebook. They are getting greedy. They already alienated a lot of users before ( my first link) and they are going to do it again. Add in the fact that they have to mess with the viewing of the site. (This new timeline feature is really very hard to read and lacks simplicity, a real no no if you want to keep your base happy)

I am younger so I don't know for sure this story is accurate so forgive me if it isn't.Think of it like this, Michael Jackson was a popular artist and had a lot going for him but he started getting all this plastic surgeries and ended up looking like a freak because he never stopped the changes. (Sorry to MJ lovers really, not trying to hate) Facebook is going in that direction. they are going to HAVE to make changes to increase revenue, but the type of changes that would have to be made are going to be bigger and will alienate their user base even more when they keep moving to thinner and thinner ice already. To add to that fact they have to increase the ads at the same time. ( users will not like that) Another issue is the privacy concerns. I am already close to 75% sure I am going to limit my online footprint on there ( maybe delete it) because they are already getting too comfortable with using everyone's private information. (I believe they will push the limits even farther in the future but that's just an opinion) People are trusting Facebook and Google less and less with all this data they are collecting. IMHO I think the market is soon primed for a Facebook replacement. Facebook will become Myspace. ( Yes, myspace still exists shockingly) Someone will come along with an alternative that will out-facebook Facebook and Facebook will start declining more and more as time goes on. ( basically it will get back to a "facebook" type website before it became a really money grabbing type company. ) Tumblr is already gaining popularity. ( Like a personal blog site, I hadn't heard of it 3 months ago but now a lot of teens and above have it)

Anyway sorry that is so long and not in a great format. Hopefully it was somewhat useful. I forgot if I mentioned it but the 2nd link I posted is a very good video IMHO. ( fwiw she said some of the same stuff i did, but I wrote what I wrote before watching that video) Only thing I disagree with her on is the optimistic outlook. ( Pay close attention to the beginning about diversifying, I believe that is the key to this stock.) Expanding the market to China would be a huge boost. If you are betting on that I can only see the stock rising.

How will they increase revenues without alienating the user base? Short term to mid term I agree, but the user base is already beginning to flip, with their attempts to increase revenue in the future ( ie increase ads) They will risk losing many customers.