Comments on: Facebook Files, Initial Thoughts

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 23:36:00 +0000

Yup here it comes

By: dbv

dbv — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:49:00 +0000

Looks like it is going to be earlier – http://gigaom.com/mobile/facebook-filling-the-gaping-hole-in-its-mobile-strategy/. Rolling out a mobile ad presence 3 mths before an IPO won’t demonstrate whether it works or not. All a bit odd.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:40:00 +0000

Agreed, and I think they are all over it. I’d not be surprised to see something come out in the next six months if not earlier here.

By: dbv

dbv — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 13:01:00 +0000

@john:disqus
Enjoyed the interview but there was no mention of mobile. The two big themes
of the past 5 years have been social networks (exemplified by Facebook) and
mobile (spectacularly exemplified by Apple). In the big picture, mobile trumps
social ie. mobile without social would still be huge. Yet, Facebook’s S1 says
about its mobile monetization strategy, “We do not currently directly generate
any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability
to do so successfully is unproven”. Further, 445m people use Facebook’s mobile
products on iOS and Android.
The new mobile industry got going in 2007 with the introduction of the iPhone
and in the intervening 5 years Facebook haven’t developed a mobile monetization
story. Google started to do so with Android around 2006/2007. Facebook could
argue that it doesn’t have the financial resources but it made a $1bn+ profit in
the last year. Investors (typically) purchase shares in a high-technology
company if they believe it will grow rapidly in the future either by market
share or profit or both. Mobile is the future but Facebook says that 5 years
after the new mobile industry got started (and with 445m mobile users) it
doesn’t have a meaningful revenue stream from this route yet is seeking a market
valuation of between $80bn to $100bn. Maybe they do have a mobile monetization
plan to implement post-IPO but shouldn’t there be something tangible in the S1
or are investors being asked to take at face value that Facebook recognizes the
problem and have a fix on it even though they haven’t been able to fix it during
the past 5 years?

By: Facebook Launched (and Re-Launched?) | The Story of Information

Facebook Launched (and Re-Launched?) | The Story of Information — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 04:14:25 +0000

[...] to the filing: Andy Kessler, Nicholas Carr, Om Malik, John Battelle, Sam Gustin, New York Times technology reporters, The Economist Share [...]