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Ford vs Facebook

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Re: Ford vs Facebook

#2
Value is being determined based on activity (page views, ad impressions, users), instead of real things like... you know... money and assets.

Users, pageviews, etc, are assets. If the market will be able to determine their "correct" value... that's another question.

Re: Ford vs Facebook

#3

Value is being determined based on activity (page views, ad impressions, users), instead of real things like... you know... money and assets. Users, pageviews, etc, are assets. If the market will be able to determine their "correct" value... that's another question.

Users and pageviews are _potential_ assets. You cannot sell either of those things, but you might find ways of making them produce money.

Re: Ford vs Facebook

#4

Value is being determined based on activity (page views, ad impressions, users), instead of real things like... you know... money and assets. Users, pageviews, etc, are assets. If the market will be able to determine their "correct" value... that's another question.

Users and pageviews are _potential_ assets. You cannot sell either of those things, but you might find ways of making them produce money.

There are many other intangible assets that produce money but are not easily sell-able: Trademarks, human capital, trade-secrets, other intellectual property, etc.

Re: Ford vs Facebook

#5
Perhaps it's a bubble, but Facebook is used by an eighth of the people on the planet.

Tell me that's not an asset. A single company has lots of information about and can display advertising to an eighth of the alive human race.

Then again, so does Google, I suppose.

Re: Ford vs Facebook

#6

Perhaps it's a bubble, but Facebook is used by an eighth of the people on the planet. Tell me that's not an asset. A single company has lots of information about and can display advertising to an eighth of the alive human race. Then again, so does Google, I suppose.

The English language is spoken by a larger number - that doesn't mean the OED is worth a trillion $

Re: Ford vs Facebook

#7

Value is being determined based on activity (page views, ad impressions, users), instead of real things like... you know... money and assets. Users, pageviews, etc, are assets. If the market will be able to determine their "correct" value... that's another question.

You are correct these things can be viewed as assets. However, if the author is deriving his data from Facebook's own declarations, then even they aren't claiming the value of their assets including User-loyalty, are anywhere near their market cap.

Re: Ford vs Facebook

#8

Perhaps it's a bubble, but Facebook is used by an eighth of the people on the planet. Tell me that's not an asset. A single company has lots of information about and can display advertising to an eighth of the alive human race. Then again, so does Google, I suppose.

>> They have an eighth of humanity as users.

If anything, that brings FB into a whole new realm of risk. Combine this with the fundamentals ( or lack of ) and it seems better left untouched.

Re: Ford vs Facebook

#9

Perhaps it's a bubble, but Facebook is used by an eighth of the people on the planet. Tell me that's not an asset. A single company has lots of information about and can display advertising to an eighth of the alive human race. Then again, so does Google, I suppose.

The English language is spoken by a larger number - that doesn't mean the OED is worth a trillion $

The OED doesn't know your social connections, your sexual orientation, your date of birth, your address, your previous address, your current location, your gender, your age, your interests, your employer, all the websites you've visited or even what you look like.

Re: Ford vs Facebook

#10
Certainly what makes Facebook valuable is their huge network which is sustained, I think, through barriers to entry (network effect), and barriers to switching (owning your data).

I wonder what might happen, if it could happen that the EU or US FTC mandates api access into and out of Facebook, perhaps after a decision that 2015 Man will use social networking as a needed public infrastructure, to be provided on a common carrier like basis.

Can the sheer size of Facebook's network trigger monopoly break up? Or the sheer size combined with lack of API access?

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