Facebook

[jcb]

So facebook goes public, and then the stock tumbles. Today I get these neat little facebook notices where they want me to give them my cell phone number (supposedly to aid log in) and then a note saying I have an assigned facebook email account, and if I want I can chnage it to another one. I read that as "Give us your REAL email account". Me thinks they are trying to collect more info so they can sell it. Me thinks if this stuff continues, me might just go back to sending emails to my friends. What ya think?

The only thing Facebook has to sell to other people is YOU.

[Tim_T]

Facebook is valuable because of ad revenue. You buy an ad on there and you can bet 75-90% of your target audience will see it. In the magazine business, ad prices are set based on circulation, the higher circulation the more it cost to advertise. Imagine how many people are on Facebook.

[peter]

I think their profit for the last year was about one billion. How does that make it worth 100 billion. That should make it worth five to ten billion the way I calculate it, even at five billion I would not put a penny in it if I had a penny. Remember AOL, Myspace? Where are they today? Dot com bubble ring a bell? I think it is pretty obvious the public will buy anything, just go to the mall or target or watch TV. Many buying decisions (stock market included) seem to be influenced by emotion and not rational thinking. The free market economy is based on the rational thinking of reasonable people. Maybe that is a big problem.

I simply don't get facebook although we did just last week put fishin.com on there. Two people I work with told me it needed to be done. They are younger and use facebook a lot so I agreed but I still don't get it.

[Tim_T]

Peter, does fishin.com have a page there? I couldn't find it.

[peter]

We do, but I don't know how to get there. Just tried a google search and nothing came up. I'll ask Garrett my son how to navigate there.