Facebook is worthless, it's the personal data people willingly share that has value. When people migrate to the newest best place to be online it will leave a wake of worthless stock on Wall st. I don't think websites should be launching IPO's unless they sell product.

Ok, not "worthless", surely millions of eyes looking at ads has some value BUT there is no loyalty to those ads and there WILL be a next cool place to hang out online, and a next... and yet another.

That might sound jaded, I appologize, but to keep the value high on Wall st will lead to.... more ads.

That's a lot of money to do things and influence changes. Who get's what and where's it going to be spent?

That might sound jaded, I appologize, but to keep the value high on Wall st will lead to.... more ads.

yep, once other people have stake in that site the whole thing will be changing.


also, they seem to be making plenty of money....why rush out for an IPO? why not stay private and keep raking in cash.

also, they seem to be making plenty of money....why rush out for an IPO? why not stay private and keep raking in cash.

The same reason for every IPO...the investors want to (eventually) cash out their investment.

As votrechien and Kickaxe said

Facebook investors - Goldman Sachs and its numerous affiliates such as "russian" (financed via Goldman's money) Digital Sky Technologies - finally realized that they can't pump'n'dump Facebook any further. That its perceived value is about peaked. So the IPO is an inevitable way how Wall Street profits and suckers who buy stock loose their shirt.

The last time it was funny to watch though, the game-making company Zynga. Went IPO which was almost shut down the first day as stock tanked, naturally, for digital-cow-making company is ranked at $7 billion........... People are waking up to the Wall Street pump'n'dump-ers.

The company is currently looking at a valuation of $75 billion to $100 billion

Haha. Hahahaha!

The cashout on this stock will be massive with that silly valuation.

The people who buy up the IPOs are all large funds and those funds are owned by state pensions, education funds etc.. So it looks like thousands of mum and dads pensions are being poured into Facebook when it goes IPO.

>it's the personal data people willingly share that has value

With an estimated 500 million users that puts the valuation of each profile as $200 per person.

Facebook is profitable though.

It still seems pricey, but that's what people were saying when Google was going for $80/share.

//added
Facebook says it has 800 million active users [facebook.com]... though us non-wall street types would deduct 10% of that for bot activity and duplicate profiles of the same people.

brother of LAN, deduct 10%? come on... again, I am not sure who's willing to pay $200 per profile...if it was business members, or home owners - maybe, but pleeeaaase, $200 for some 12 y.o. kid, or grandma, or someone from south america? ... these are maybe worth 2 bucks. Given the curve of these, 10% useful users that are actually worth $200, a more reasonable estimate is $21.8 per user. I am coming with IPO of $11 billion, anything more and you overpay.

it is a pure play pump'n'dump, Goldman sachs will make billions.

02-01-12: From ABCNEWS.com: Facebook IPO: $5 Billion Filing to Sell Stock in May

Facebook, in one of the world's most widely anticipated IPOs, or initial public offerings of stock, filed papers this afternoon to raise at least $5 billion and begin to sell stock this spring. [abcnews.go.com...]

" What the documents show is that Facebook has been growing very rapidly and very profitably. In two years, revenues - almost entirely from advertising - have increased fivefold, with profits quadrupling to exactly $1bn in 2011."

"The $5bn being raised would be the most for an internet initial public offering since Google and its early backers raised $1.67bn in 2004."
[bbc.co.uk...]
It's a suprise that the revenues were so high.