Facebook IPO

[GrayHare]

True to its mantra, Fadbook is moving (down) fast and breaking things, like its IPO price.

[rescueme]

I have no idea where FB is heading, but I/DW never invested in anythig we never used, on a personal basis (no, we don't use FB).

FWIW...

[Running_Man]

Well that was $1800 lesson in "I should listen to Clifp"

[EvrClrx311]

Fundamentally, the problem Facebook has is that its business is to infringe as much as possible onto its users privacy without overstepping the boundary... its a very fine line to walk.

In an ideal world (for them), everyone would be ok with Facebook knowing and understanding everything about them. They would open up a new world of advertising where Facebook would be king...

In reality, everyone is leery of what Facebook gathers and wants to protect their privacy. This is because what Facebook learns about its users is from what they post... so people are changing the way they post to protect themselves (at least some are).

The main reason Google will always overpower facebook is that Google has found a way to gather information about its users without them knowing it... or caring in many cases. Google tracks almost every website you go to. Open the source page of this site and you'll see google analytics powering the back end stuff like tracking IP addresses and page counters... its a service they give to almost every site on the net. They also keep a record of every search you do... its not hard to link an IP that searched to the IP that just jumped between a few pages... storing statistics on what you bought and where after doing a certain kind of search.

In this sense, Google already does what facebook struggles to do on a smaller level... gather information on all of us to sell advertising. Facebook has a more public method... so they get the bad rap, without reaping the financial rewards.

[Midpack]

Quote:

Originally Posted by EvrClrx311 In an ideal world (for them), everyone would be ok with Facebook knowing and understanding everything about them. They would open up a new world of advertising where Facebook would be king...

Not disagreeing with you at all especially regarding privacy (and we're not on FB as a result), but wouldn't what FaceBook is trying to do benefit users too if they could find a way to protect individual privacy? There are already many government and other organizations that have very private info on us.

Unless we want to pay subscription fees directly (good luck with that), ads are going to be in our faces to generate revenues so we can delude ourselves into thinking websites/services (like this one and most others) are "free." If I have to see ads, I'd much rather have ads targeted to my interests than all the random, mindless ads we're flooded with embedded in most media today. I don't watch much TV, and if it wasn't for DVRs I'd watch even less. It's never as easy as it seems...

[kcowan]

Sorry about making this page so wide. It was that over-inflated FB share certificate!

[EvrClrx311]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack Not disagreeing with you at all especially regarding privacy (and we're not on FB as a result), but wouldn't what FaceBook is trying to do benefit users too if they could find a way to protect individual privacy? There are already many government and other organizations that have very private info on us. Unless we want to pay subscription fees directly (good luck with that), ads are going to be in our faces to generate revenues so we can delude ourselves into thinking websites/services (like this one and most others) are "free." If I have to see ads, I'd much rather have ads targeted to my interests than all the random, mindless ads we're flooded with embedded in most media today. I don't watch much TV, and if it wasn't for DVRs I'd watch even less. It's never as easy as it seems...

fwiw, I have the same mindset... I don't care that Facebook advertising to my specific interests. I actually prefer it to the random ads I see on TV (why do I need to waste 30 seconds hearing about tampons I'll never use, or a luxury car company I'll never purchase a car from?). I also don't mind that they know a lot about me...

I consider everything I post to Facebook as public knowledge within my friends list. So gathering it all together into a user profile doesn't alarm me... so long as it is not made available or sold to people who want to do anything other than advertise to me (example: I don't want a burglar to have the ability to steal/buy that data and make his life easier... say showing up on my doorstep because he knows I just posted that I'm on vacation)

[almost there]

I guess its a good thing its an up day today... Where would its price been had this been a down day? Am sure the MM's are happy about that!

I used to get IPO's through E-trade in the Tech. glory days.
Learned my lesson. They are fun to watch though........ From a-far.

This one might be scooped up by a bigger fish down the road.....
But its price would have to be divided by a pretty large number 1st.

Think I will lower my price to $10.00 a share and forget about it for a while. (maybe forever)
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

[almost there]

On 2nd thought, it could shoot up and stay there forever......... LOL LOL

I had an account for a couple yrs. Stopped it about a year ago. It was fun for a while, caught up with lots of folks I hadn't thought about much in 20-30 yrs.
Then it just got a bit sad seeing some folks I had known forever post non stop about nothing........ day after day......... after day........

Was hot on the stock a couple yrs ago when it was big (for me anyway).
But now? Not so much..

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2B Yes, but..... What is she doing to generate Facebook revenue? It's all about advertizing. FB ultimately doesn't care how many blurry photos of drunken college partying she posts.

Yeah, I know, she's the product and not the customer.

I just wonder what else is out there with a few million users that would give her a bunch of friends to talk to. That's Google's problem with g+: nobody takes the first step to drag the rest of their group over there from FB. Instead the "kids" can tinker with their FB privacy settings to keep their drunken photos among themselves so that their parents don't have to laugh see them.

Her university has a dedicated web page for students selling things to each other-- bicycles, dorm furniture, textbooks, and so forth. But it's the college's website, which means you have to log in. Instead all of the students use a huge FB group called "Seniors Selling Stuff". Within 48 hours her dumpster diving shopping was finished.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Midpack But there will always be challengers. I wonder if she and her friends are influenced by the advertising, making purchases all or partly as a result of what they see on FB?

The trick is finding the challengers. Maybe it'll take FB a decade to wither away, or some hugely stupid privacy policy mistake. Their game to lose.

I can't think of any FB advertising that influences her decisions-- the influence is her peer group. Her biggest uses seem to be support groups (homework, projects) and scheduling events. Movie reviews? Restaurant reviews? But they're all of the form of "I went to this place and it was good", not so much "FB told me about this and I like it". When she experiences something that she wants to share, she goes to FB and tells her friends... or finds the FB fan page and "likes" it. I'm not sure that her decisions are influenced by FB more than they were influenced by friends, and FB just happened to be the most convenient way to communicate.

I guess FB helps advertisers figure out what consumers want. You think they'd be better at it by now...

If FB runs ads, my Chrome Adblocker is apparently removing all of them. In fact the only ads I see on the Web are the link ads that somehow sneak into my first use of E-R.org for that day. And if they only generate revenue with a click, I make it a point not to click.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2B After sucking $18 B out in real money, I'd be willing to go down with the ship (mataphorically speaking, of course).

It's only $18B if he sells the shares!

He'll probably go down like most CEOs... he'll borrow against the shares, get addicted to using his brokerage account as a checkbook, and then get hammered by margin calls during a market meltdown.

[MichaelB]

Facebook isn't limited to making money from advertising from its current users. If they can raise a few $B after paying down the stock option costs they can use that money to buy or fund their way into something else. I would be inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, Mark Z was already awarded 120 millions stock options, fully vested, in a company he founded, before it went public. There are some smart people behind this.

[2B]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nords It's only $18B if he sells the shares! He'll probably go down like most CEOs... he'll borrow against the shares, get addicted to using his brokerage account as a checkbook, and then get hammered by margin calls during a market meltdown.

I thought the $18 B was his personal take in cash from the offering. He still owns over 50% of the voting shares which would make his "paper" holdings several times over his cash out.

I could be wrong on this because I haven't really followed it that closely. I no longer buy individual stocks and everything I heard about FB made alarm bells go off. These include an extremely high PE, massive cash out by insiders, no net new funds to the company treasury and questions coming forward on how FB would grow revenue/profits moving forward.

I sounded more like Z-man could start playing like Mark Cuban.

[EvrClrx311]

I believe Mark 'only' sold about $1 billion of his stock (about 5% of the shares he owns) and planned to pay taxes with it on stock options he was going to exercise.

in that sense... Mark lost close to $2 billion dollars today when the stock tanked. That's the trouble in trying to put a net worth on these guys who have so much of it in company stock. One month he could be worth $18 billion, the next $25 billion and the next $10 billion... just depending on how his stock is doing.

Also worth noting... if Zuckerberg wanted to liquidate his stock holdings to actually get the value of his net worth, he wouldn't be able to get $35 a share as people who panic at the sight on him selling and the stock would plummet. So theoretically he is worth about $15 billion... but in reality, he doesn't have access to that money. It is tied into his company and its performance.

Though Rockefeller would disagree... personally I'd say when you've over $1 billion what's the difference?

[Animorph]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2B I thought the $18 B was his personal take in cash from the offering. He still owns over 50% of the voting shares which would make his "paper" holdings several times over his cash out.

He controls the votes of 50+% of the shares, but he doesn't own over 50% of the shares. Just however many added up to $20B at the IPO price.

Didn't quite get low enough to where I buy some cheaper shares and hope for some volatility so I can sell my original shares.

[Midpack]

FB shares dropped to $33 today and closed just over $34, down about 11%. All three major indices were up 1-2.5% today. Stay tuned...

[Nords]

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2B I thought the $18 B was his personal take in cash from the offering. He still owns over 50% of the voting shares which would make his "paper" holdings several times over his cash out.

I don't know one way or the other, but I think people would be unduly concerned if a founder sold shares at the IPO. I'm pretty sure that he's restricted from selling until the typical 180-day lockup expires.

What is unique is the degree to which he's maintained voting control. Most founders get to the IPO with maybe 5% of the shares and 20% of the votes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by 2B I no longer buy individual stocks and everything I heard about FB made alarm bells go off. These include an extremely high PE, massive cash out by insiders, no net new funds to the company treasury and questions coming forward on how FB would grow revenue/profits moving forward.

I saw an article that Google's P/E at IPO was even higher than Facebook's-- 185. Lots of people were skeptical that a search company could make money from selling ads like Yahoo!, AltaVista, HotBot,...

Personally I've heard too many funny stories about Facebook being slow to pay their revenue share of the ads to gaming companies and other "partners".

[growing_older]

The over 50% of the voting shares would concern me. There's no checks and balances. If he wants to drop $1 billion on an acquisition without consulting the board or stockholders (Instagram) he can just do so. Maybe he has a permanently hot hand in whatever whim moves him, but I doubt he can always be right.

[kcowan]

Also remember that non-voting shares are worth less than voting shares. So his 56% of voting shares has not yet been valued (other than establishing a floor from the non-voting shares). In the case of Magna, it cost the shareholders $1B to purchase the founders shares from the Stronachs.

[frayne]

I hear they are changing the name to FaceBath in honor of those who took advantage of the IPO.

[Animorph]

Went ahead and picked up 50sh each at $31.60 today. Hope we get a little upward volatility to go with the downward.