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Facebook is not worth $33 billion

37signals.com

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Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#161

Post by dusklight »

Thing about making money off facebook is the same thing that happened with trying to make money off myspace.

Facebook has gotten increasingly annoying to use lately and the reason is changes are being made that benefit the company's ability to make money, not the interests of the users. I remember a time when all my friends were on myspace and suddenly everyone switched to facebook. The reason was facebook loaded instantly and you didn't get spammed by bots trying to make money off you. These two things are becoming increasingly less true of facebook today and I can feel the attempts to make money on facebook becoming more intrusive and more insulting of my intelligence.

Also as Cory Doctorow has pointed out, the inherent of value of a social network decreases over time the longer you use it [http://craphound.com/?p=1961]

It's possible for facebook to become a real success but they need to figure out the difference between creating value and making money and not try to make money by destroying value. That is never a self-sustaining strategy.

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#162

Post by frossie »

dhh wrote: post #147
harryh wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You ready to escrow that $10K? Sure. As long as you do the same.

I'm in. Email me at david at 37signals.com with the details and we'll go from there. In fact, I think this would be a great little business. Allow people to place long-term bets with money on the line on predefined, objective results. Then hold the cash in escrow until the resolution day.

If you guys can come up with a longer-than-two-year bet you can go here to broker it (and let other people join in the fun)

http://www.longbets.org/

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#164

Post by vessenes »

brm wrote: post #129
dhh wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

2. The bond and equity markets are based on sound regulation, transparency, and quarterly statements. Facebook has none of those things when it operates in the dark of the secondary markets. 3. Again, these premiums are based on outstanding shares traded under the transparency of the public stock market. See Secondary Suckers for a nice take on the perils of the secondary market: http://www.homethinking.com/brontemed…

Point of order... It wasn't a series E, it was $120 million in purchases on the secondary market http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/28/elevation-invests-another-1...

This is an extremely important point, germane to the conversation.. The $120mm was not a funding round -- it was liquidity for founders. Huge difference, and it invalidates much of dhh's original analysis.

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#165

Post by bl4k »

pchristensen wrote: post #149
bl4k wrote: post #34

1. The company has supposedly taken just under a billion dollars in venture capital and small secondary-market sales of stock. So the actual money that has changed hands is just 3% of the total evaluation of the company!" Not true. Sure they have raised $1B themselves, but a lot of stock has changed hands on the secondary market. Facebook sanctioned employees being able to sell stock up to a certain amount, in lieu o…

when dhh says "make $X", he means profit, not revenue.

I can't edit above so I will add it here:

* '09 spent $400 on $700M of revenue ($300M profit)

* profitable since Q2 of 09

* one of the only social networks to ever reach profitability

* 55% of US retailers present on Facebook

* 20% of global social network ad revenues

* 550,000 approved apps, 1M developers

* 20% of users have logged into another site using connect

* Zynga revenue is over $40M a month. Up to $10M of that goes to Facebook for advertising, while Facebook then take 30% of what Zynga make through Facebook revenue. So Zynga first pay Facebook to get the users, then pay Facebook again when they make money from those users. Great model.

sources: * http://www.sharespost.com/research_report?filename=facebook-...

* http://www.sharespost.com/research_report?filename=100702_GS...

(both reports source from SEC filings and other sources)

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#166

Post by [deleted] »

dansingerman wrote: post #37
edw519 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird, it's like in Chicago they don't have multiplication or something. Oh, and New York smells. (take that!) Two of my heroes dragging discourse on hacker news into the toilet. What's the world coming to?

You should never meet your heroes (IRL or online). It invariably leads to disappointment.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#167

Post by [deleted] »

irahul wrote: post #78
edw519 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird, it's like in Chicago they don't have multiplication or something. Oh, and New York smells. (take that!) Two of my heroes dragging discourse on hacker news into the toilet. What's the world coming to?

Both of them have some insights worth pondering, but the attacks are kinda negatively overshadowing the discussion. Joel really shouldn't have started the Chicago hyperbole. Do they have some history or it's just impulsive?

[deleted]

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#169

Post by [deleted] »

subbu wrote: post #152
irahul wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of them have some insights worth pondering, but the attacks are kinda negatively overshadowing the discussion. Joel really shouldn't have started the Chicago hyperbole. Do they have some history or it's just impulsive?

I think it all started with Joel's "Language Wars" article http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/09/01.html for which DHH responded with "Fear, Uncertain, and Doubt by Joel Spolsky" http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000596.html . They have been at loggerheads since then.

[deleted]

Re: Facebook is not worth $33 billion

#170

Post by xentronium »

subbu wrote: post #152
irahul wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of them have some insights worth pondering, but the attacks are kinda negatively overshadowing the discussion. Joel really shouldn't have started the Chicago hyperbole. Do they have some history or it's just impulsive?

I think it all started with Joel's "Language Wars" article http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2006/09/01.html for which DHH responded with "Fear, Uncertain, and Doubt by Joel Spolsky" http://www.loudthinking.com/arc/000596.html . They have been at loggerheads since then.

If you're like me and can't access loudthinking link, here's a copy: http://www.artima.com/forums/flat.jsp?forum=123&thread=1...
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