Soca Warriors Online Discussion Forum
General => General Discussion => Topic started by: triniairman on May 11, 2012, 02:45:57 PM
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Facebook Backers Plan to Sell Up to $5.5 Billion in Stock
By Sarah Frier - May 3, 2012 9:42 PM PT
Facebook Inc. (FB) investors Accel Partners and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS) plan to sell as much as $1.8 billion in shares of the top social network, becoming two of the biggest sellers in the planned initial public offering.
Goldman Sachs is selling 13.2 million shares, worth as much as $461.6 million at the high end of the range outlined yesterday by Menlo Park, California-based Facebook. Accel Partners, an early investor in Facebook, intends to sell as much as $1.3 billion of shares.
Facebook unveiled plans yesterday to raise as much as $11.8 billion in the largest-ever Internet IPO. Executives including Chief Executive Officer Mark Zuckerberg and backers such as Digital Sky Technologies will sell a total of 157.4 million shares for as much as $35 apiece, according to a regulatory filing. None will unload their entire holding.
“You don’t like to see insiders getting out, and they’re selling a little more than expected,” said Erik Gordon, a professor at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. “It certainly shows in some people’s minds that the price is pretty full, because if you really thought that 12 months later the stock would be 50 percent higher, you wouldn’t leave that on the table.”
At the high end of the range, Facebook would be valued at $96 billion, and executive and investor sales would yield $5.5 billion. Existing shareholders paid an average of $1.11 a share for Facebook, the filing shows.
Goldman Sachs Sale
Facebook is offering 180 million shares to raise funds for general corporate purposes.
While Goldman Sachs is one of the IPO underwriters, it failed to win the lead role after scuttling a private sale of Facebook’s stock to U.S. investors last year. Facebook said in January 2011 it raised $1.5 billion from Goldman Sachs and Digital Sky Technologies, valuing the company at $50 billion. Goldman Sachs, affiliated funds and Digital Sky invested $500 million, while non-U.S. investors in a Goldman Sachs fund bought $1 billion of shares.
Michael DuVally, a spokesman for New York-based Goldman Sachs, declined to comment on the plans to sell Facebook shares. Richard Wong, a partner at Accel Partners, declined to comment.
Zuckerberg will offer 30.2 million of his 533.8 million shares in the sale, bringing him as much as $1.1 billion. The majority of his net proceeds will be used to pay taxes associated with exercising a stock option.
Accel, Digital Sky
Accel, the biggest outside holder, invested $12.2 million in Facebook in 2005 and owns 11.3 percent of Facebook’s Class B shares. At the high end of the proposed IPO price range, Accel’s remaining stake would be valued at about $5.7 billion.
Digital Sky is selling 26.3 million shares to yield as much as $919 million.
Selling may be smart for holders with large stakes who haven’t had a chance to diversify their assets, said Gordon, of the Ross School of Business.
Other selling stockholders include Elevation Partners, Greylock Partners, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT), Zynga Inc. (ZNGA) Chief Executive Officer Mark Pincus and LinkedIn Corp. (LNKD) Chairman Reid Hoffman. The investors are selling only parts of their Facebook stakes.
Co-founder Dustin Moskovitz and early backer Sean Parker are holding on to their stakes in the IPO, though both may sell a portion if the underwriters exercise their option to buy additional shares. T. Rowe Price Group Inc. will keep its more than 5 percent holding.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-05-03/zuckerberg-facebook-backers-plan-to-sell-5-5-billion-in-stock.html
I thinking about investing in these stocks, I would like to know some of the forumites opinion on this type of investment.
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Personally I feel it go start off hot and sweaty nice and high....kinda cruise mid range in price and dive when the next best ting come along
same way facebook dus out myspace......someting else go blow out facebook in a couple years
...or so I Hopin because I go ketch ass to afford plenty shares when they first go public anyway ;)
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Personally I feel it go start off hot and sweaty nice and high....kinda cruise mid range in price and dive when the next best ting come along
same way facebook dus out myspace......someting else go blow out facebook in a couple years
...or so I Hopin because I go ketch ass to afford plenty shares when they first go public anyway ;)
I can't see them fading anytime soon with so much followers..If I see or sniff anything that can compete with them, then I'll have the option to either sell or trade.
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I was thinking of buying some of these shares only to hear from one of these wall pundits when facebook go public small fish like me would not have any chances it will be for big, big, big fishes only .
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I wouldn't touch it.
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I wouldn't touch it.
:beermug:
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when google had their ipo, they had some kind of auction to try to get some of the shares into the common man hands. this look like it might turn into a big boy event.
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Well I got 5G to play with, I going brave and hopefully I get some of it... Just got an account with Charles Schwabb.
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Soooooo the news is that the launch eh as spectacular as originally thought......what all yuh think??
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I thought there would be at least a $20 jump in the stock price because of insane, overzealous investors... It has to be disappointing for Facebook employees as well. Now they just start the grind of being a public company and hitting quarter to quarter number targets. Not as much fun as the build up (but probably fun to be rich on paper). Unfortunately, I don't see a bright future and expect the valuation to plunge off a cliff in the next few months... Here's why: "Underwriters stepped in to support the company's shares at the IPO price, according to a person familiar with the matter. There were more than 30 banks involved in the deal."
So, basically, the game was rigged. Big investors came in and made buys above the trade price to inflate the value. In in-person auctions, this is called "shilling." I took heat from some pundits when I said that investing in the Facebook IPO was a poor idea given the fact that most IPO's lose steam and value pretty quickly after opening on the market . . . chalk this one up to a veteran of the dot.com boom (and subsequent bust) . . . I mean does anyone remember Palm? Getting on the purported ground floor of an IPO is usually the equivalent of fool's gold. Wait a few weeks even months until the pre-market hype subsides before you decide if you want to invest.
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I thought there would be at least a $20 jump in the stock price because of insane, overzealous investors... It has to be disappointing for Facebook employees as well. Now they just start the grind of being a public company and hitting quarter to quarter number targets. Not as much fun as the build up (but probably fun to be rich on paper). Unfortunately, I don't see a bright future and expect the valuation to plunge off a cliff in the next few months... Here's why: "Underwriters stepped in to support the company's shares at the IPO price, according to a person familiar with the matter. There were more than 30 banks involved in the deal."
So, basically, the game was rigged. Big investors came in and made buys above the trade price to inflate the value. In in-person auctions, this is called "shilling." I took heat from some pundits when I said that investing in the Facebook IPO was a poor idea given the fact that most IPO's lose steam and value pretty quickly after opening on the market . . . chalk this one up to a veteran of the dot.com boom (and subsequent bust) . . . I mean does anyone remember Palm? Getting on the purported ground floor of an IPO is usually the equivalent of fool's gold. Wait a few weeks even months until the pre-market hype subsides before you decide if you want to invest.
what about doing a quick smash and grab and get out while it still hot ........if it was hot that is ??? serious question
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Ah hear that Bono from U2, who was an investor with FB, make more money today than he ever made in his entire music career. And he is a big rock star. Insane.
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If you have discretionary income, cast your faith to the wind!
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So, basically, the game was rigged. Big investors came in and made buys above the trade price to inflate the value. In in-person auctions, this is called "shilling." I took heat from some pundits when I said that investing in the Facebook IPO was a poor idea given the fact that most IPO's lose steam and value pretty quickly after opening on the market . . .
absolutely the game is rigged. the real money was made pre-IPO by 'accredited' investors, i.e. only open to people with $1,000,000 NAV. bono and other early pre-IPO investors were likely getting in at share prices of $1 or less. the game was to whip the the masses into a frenzy with 'ol talk of sky-high valuations on the first few days. that way you have lots of suckers left holding the bag. now the next talk you hear will be how FB will be a failure so the shorts and warrants men could drive the price down and pick up more shares cheap. and everything will be kosher
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When Zucks sells off some of his shares and gives control to the investors, this stock go jump some. But that could be a while.
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Well I bought some of it... Only time will tell
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Ah hear that Bono from U2, who was an investor with FB, make more money today than he ever made in his entire music career. And he is a big rock star. Insane.
I don't knwo how much they does make touring and selling albums but supposedly a 100M investment is now worth 1B. Bono has been making it clear that he is the figurehead fro this investment group but it is not all his money. Big business has always been more profitable than people in the entertainment business.
However in Bono’s case, without the music he wasn’t getting the seed money to invest and make 1000% profit, and without the fame the music bring he wasn’t gettinga chance to get in on the ground florr as an investor.
Well I got 5G to play with, I going brave and hopefully I get some of it... Just got an account with Charles Schwabb.
Airman I curious about your interste in FB. It have plenty IPOs and investment opportunities out there all the time. What is it about FB that has you so interested in it as an investment?
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Airman I curious about your interste in FB. It have plenty IPOs and investment opportunities out there all the time. What is it about FB that has you so interested in it as an investment?
I woulda do it if I had the money and the price was lower and there was more VISIBLE optimism, but it look like d bulls stay in dey pen on dis one...............wouldna hold on to them for long though ...someting's up I can feel it.
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facebook will fall down sooner or later and a new thing will take its place , remember Myspace?
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facebook will fall down sooner or later and a new thing will take its place , remember Myspace?
Remember the Dot.Com bubble... what exactly does FB produce?
Let me get this right. FB earns its revenue from those little ads that show up on the page. Except that 60% of people NEVER click on the ads and only a small percentage click on an ad occasionally. Nobody trusts FB with their CC or bank information so they don't buy through the site and a large percentage use an ad blocking software so they don't see the ads at all. GM pulls it's ads because they are "ineffective" and other advertisers are starting to question the value as well.
$38 a share? Sounds pretty steep to me. Google or Apple might be a better choice.
Google is coming out with a "mind reading software" that will taylor your searching and surfing to "suit" you! I would go with Google...
Zuck and Co., (Sept., 2010) reportedly and rumored to have made over 6 bill (from the stimulus) for selling the info of individuals who use their social network to the DHS/DOJ/&DOD. Your messages or post are no longer deleted, but archived or hidden and their servers are easily accessed by for the gov't to use.
Bono's 90mil went to 1.3 bil but this is the risk you take with venture capitalism.
You never know now in business, Zuck is a friend of Obummer and thanks to Dubya, The Bushies, The Republican "There is no Establishment" Establishment, we have "too big to fail", a trend which this Administration has gladly continued....
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Well I bought some of it... Only time will tell
good luck with your investment friend. it will likely fall fairly swiftly in the short term. but it has good growth prospects over the long term. when/if zuckerberg finally puts on his big boy pants and transforms fb into a revenue machine you will be a very happy man.
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I see fb leveling off at or around $12-$14.50 in the future..
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I see fb leveling off at or around $12-$14.50 in the future..
doubt it will go that low, but i would take it at that price in the very short term. if they get it right it should be easily worth 10X that in a few years.
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facebook will fall down sooner or later and a new thing will take its place , remember Myspace?
Remember the Dot.Com bubble... what exactly does FB produce?
Let me get this right. FB earns its revenue from those little ads that show up on the page. Except that 60% of people NEVER click on the ads and only a small percentage click on an ad occasionally. Nobody trusts FB with their CC or bank information so they don't buy through the site and a large percentage use an ad blocking software so they don't see the ads at all. GM pulls it's ads because they are "ineffective" and other advertisers are starting to question the value as well.
Thats a bit of a myopic view of marketing analysis, you are thinking strictly in terms of click through as the determining factor, but think about what those little ads do for brand awareness.
Even if i never click on those ads, i can tell you that the most effective way for a company or brand to leave a visual impression on me is to put that ad in the corner of my facebook page, otherwise i would probably never know about it.
In terms of people not buying through the site, you can also look at that as a glass half full situation with plenty upside potential i.e. they can lock down the security and focus on building the e-commerce side to the platform much like an Amazon or Google, then earn revenue off sellers in addition to advertising.
I bought some shares, from a purely simplistic perspective i just think a company with that much of a market share that touches so many people the world over has alot of potential over the medium to long term. I feel like Facebook have plenty money to make once they focus on monetizing the business.
Time will tell i guess.
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facebook will fall down sooner or later and a new thing will take its place , remember Myspace?
Remember the Dot.Com bubble... what exactly does FB produce?
Let me get this right. FB earns its revenue from those little ads that show up on the page. Except that 60% of people NEVER click on the ads and only a small percentage click on an ad occasionally. Nobody trusts FB with their CC or bank information so they don't buy through the site and a large percentage use an ad blocking software so they don't see the ads at all. GM pulls it's ads because they are "ineffective" and other advertisers are starting to question the value as well.
$38 a share? Sounds pretty steep to me. Google or Apple might be a better choice.
Google is coming out with a "mind reading software" that will taylor your searching and surfing to "suit" you! I would go with Google...
Zuck and Co., (Sept., 2010) reportedly and rumored to have made over 6 bill (from the stimulus) for selling the info of individuals who use their social network to the DHS/DOJ/&DOD. Your messages or post are no longer deleted, but archived or hidden and their servers are easily accessed by for the gov't to use.
Bono's 90mil went to 1.3 bil but this is the risk you take with venture capitalism.
You never know now in business, Zuck is a friend of Obummer and thanks to Dubya, The Bushies, The Republican "There is no Establishment" Establishment, we have "too big to fail", a trend which this Administration has gladly continued....
Facebook's value is in the store of aggregate data it's currently sitting on, not from those click-thru ads. Selling personal information and anything that would provide insight into consumer habits is Facebook's main selling point. The value of that asset isn't likely to depreciate anytime soon.
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The bulk of FB revenue is from advertising.
facebook will fall down sooner or later and a new thing will take its place , remember Myspace?
Remember the Dot.Com bubble... what exactly does FB produce?
Let me get this right. FB earns its revenue from those little ads that show up on the page. Except that 60% of people NEVER click on the ads and only a small percentage click on an ad occasionally. Nobody trusts FB with their CC or bank information so they don't buy through the site and a large percentage use an ad blocking software so they don't see the ads at all. GM pulls it's ads because they are "ineffective" and other advertisers are starting to question the value as well.
$38 a share? Sounds pretty steep to me. Google or Apple might be a better choice.
Google is coming out with a "mind reading software" that will taylor your searching and surfing to "suit" you! I would go with Google...
Zuck and Co., (Sept., 2010) reportedly and rumored to have made over 6 bill (from the stimulus) for selling the info of individuals who use their social network to the DHS/DOJ/&DOD. Your messages or post are no longer deleted, but archived or hidden and their servers are easily accessed by for the gov't to use.
Bono's 90mil went to 1.3 bil but this is the risk you take with venture capitalism.
You never know now in business, Zuck is a friend of Obummer and thanks to Dubya, The Bushies, The Republican "There is no Establishment" Establishment, we have "too big to fail", a trend which this Administration has gladly continued....
Facebook's value is in the store of aggregate data it's currently sitting on, not from those click-thru ads. Selling personal information and anything that would provide insight into consumer habits is Facebook's main selling point. The value of that asset isn't likely to depreciate anytime soon.
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The bulk of FB revenue is from advertising.
Pay attention tun tun...
Facebook's value is in the store of aggregate data it's currently sitting on, not from those click-thru ads. Selling personal information and anything that would provide insight into consumer habits is Facebook's main selling point. The value of that asset isn't likely to depreciate anytime soon.
Now see if you can figure out how residual value of that asset relates to devaluation of Facebook stocks as Daft was talking about.
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To be fair, by the end of this week we should have a fair idea of how this stock will continue to trade. I however maintain that the stock was priced too high when it entered the market.
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To be fair, by the end of this week we should have a fair idea of how this stock will continue to trade. I however maintain that the stock was priced too high when it entered the market.
me eh no big analyst I coulda tell yuh dat :beermug:
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what de jail ?! .... ah hearing de new investors are suing FB, targetting de initial investors.
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:heehee:
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:heehee:
:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:
something is surely up felt it in my bones
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I'm hoping that the people who invested on here used funds they could afford to loose at least not count on for a very long time, seem like it will be a very rough ride in the short to medium term for FB
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I was asking the question because I was genuinely trying to figure out if people are expecting FBs numbers to get much better, if they are looking at the brand and expecting it to do what Apple and Google did or if they are users of the product who have strong faith in it based on their experience of what it can do.
I just scanned the prospectus and I have to say that it does seem overpriced.
Based on its launch price, FB P/E ratio was over 100. The standard for a mature company is 20. Apple is 16, Google is 18 and them Oil companies in the single digits.
Now FB is obviously a company that people expect to grow and is in a unique market but its revenues would have to increase 4 times just to get within range of making the stock price in line with the market. Looking at their financials this is actually possible. Revenue increase 2X last year and almost 3 times the year before but…the trend is a downward trend. FB’s % revenue increases have gone down year on year as has their % increases in users.
Now if they do maintain a 2X revenue increase in each of the next two years by adding new streams they could easily become value but yuh still talking about buying a stock a couple years down the line for the same price as yuh could get it today.
They express some risks. One that jump out at me is an inability to make money off of mobile platforms. I don’t use FB, but is there something that stops them generating ad revenue on their phone apps? I ask because unless the app is inferior to the PC website I see more and more people making a shift away from PCs to mobile use of the web.
It also seems like the hype and publicity hurt the stock badly. As the next new thing the potential of FB is hardly a secret like Google or Apple (circa 2001) was. It seems that the time to get in on FB as a growth proposition was in 2006 and right now it is a stock to hold on to for a 5 years or more whereas they have less well publicised IPOs or other active stocks that could double your money in that time with the same amount of uncertainty.
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I was asking the question because I was genuinely trying to figure out if people are expecting FBs numbers to get much better, if they are looking at the brand and expecting it to do what Apple and Google did or if they are users of the product who have strong faith in it based on their experience of what it can do.
I just scanned the prospectus and I have to say that it does seem overpriced.
Based on its launch price, FB P/E ratio was over 100. The standard for a mature company is 20. Apple is 16, Google is 18 and them Oil companies in the single digits.
Now FB is obviously a company that people expect to grow and is in a unique market but its revenues would have to increase 4 times just to get within range of making the stock price in line with the market. Looking at their financials this is actually possible. Revenue increase 2X last year and almost 3 times the year before but…the trend is a downward trend. FB’s % revenue increases have gone down year on year as has their % increases in users.
Now if they do maintain a 2X revenue increase in each of the next two years by adding new streams they could easily become value but yuh still talking about buying a stock a couple years down the line for the same price as yuh could get it today.
They express some risks. One that jump out at me is an inability to make money off of mobile platforms. I don’t use FB, but is there something that stops them generating ad revenue on their phone apps? I ask because unless the app is inferior to the PC website I see more and more people making a shift away from PCs to mobile use of the web.
It also seems like the hype and publicity hurt the stock badly. As the next new thing the potential of FB is hardly a secret like Google or Apple (circa 2001) was. It seems that the time to get in on FB as a growth proposition was in 2006 and right now it is a stock to hold on to for a 5 years or more whereas they have less well publicised IPOs or other active stocks that could double your money in that time with the same amount of uncertainty.
This is the main thing (bolded) a few of us here at work could not get over.
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This is the main thing (bolded) a few of us here at work could not get over.
I look at it again and maybe it is near-sighted to focus on revenue. As Bakes said the value is in the huge membership. I see other stocks valued on their subscriber base too like Netflix and Sirius, although these are services with paid subscribers.
And the stock is holding at $31 so it has found its level. It probably was just that 20% margin that was there for the insiders to make a little extra. Still a high P/E but if investors arte the stock based on its potential the value is what it is.
Also Google’s revenue at IPO was much less than FB and its P/E ratio was in the 60s.
Like Google, FB has a strong brand and a huge of web presence. Is facebook like the old AOL where you could go there and do spend most of your time on the web? I imagine that if they could licence music television and movies so you could get all your entertainment from a FB app on your TV or the FB site on the internet. The advantage of the app being that it integrates it with your FB features like updates, what friends ding, pictures, face-chat etc.
Also FB user base in the US and Canada is only 200M. The rest of that 800M is Europe and energing markets. Those markets like India could show the most % growth over time and be a cash cow for FB.
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Why not all this insightful dialogue BEFORE the IPO?? ::)
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Why not all this insightful dialogue BEFORE the IPO?? ::)
I'll be honest FB is not on my radar, which is why I was surprised at all the buzz on the stock. I only take a look at the thread after the IPO.
Plenty people dogging the IPO so I decide to look at the prospectus and see what the positives and negatives are.
Looking at it now, if people were expecting it to be a good investment at 38, it might be worth investing in at 31, especially if yuh have money to sit for a long time.
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I end up selling all the shares I bought Monday. When I saw the words investigation, I was not prepared to play anymore. If only I could get my girl to sell, she so damn stubborn!! Lol
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I end up selling all the shares I bought Monday. When I saw the words investigation, I was not prepared to play anymore. If only I could get my girl to sell, she so damn stubborn!! Lol
I think yuh pull de trigger too quick... prime reason why they shouldn't let allyuh play on E*Trade :D
I'll never forget 3 1/2 yrs ago Lehman Brothers was selling at $33 a share Friday evening and I wanted to buy some short (not much, about 100 or so), but couldn't get the trade to go thru before market close. Monday morning I wake up bright and early and stock open at $27. I blue mad 'cause dai'z $600 ah miss out on right dey. Next thing ah say "it will drop more, lemmih still short some" only to find out the damn SEC placed a moratorium on short sales of Lehman Brothers stock. Stock end up closing at $3 a share that Monday evening. Woulda be a nice $3,000 I coulda have :(
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I end up selling all the shares I bought Monday. When I saw the words investigation, I was not prepared to play anymore. If only I could get my girl to sell, she so damn stubborn!! Lol
I think yuh pull de trigger too quick... prime reason why they shouldn't let allyuh play on E*Trade :D
I'll never forget 3 1/2 yrs ago Lehman Brothers was selling at $33 a share Friday evening and I wanted to buy some short (not much, about 100 or so), but couldn't get the trade to go thru before market close. Monday morning I wake up bright and early and stock open at $27. I blue mad 'cause dai'z $600 ah miss out on right dey. Next thing ah say "it will drop more, lemmih still short some" only to find out the damn SEC placed a moratorium on short sales of Lehman Brothers stock. Stock end up closing at $3 a share that Monday evening. Woulda be a nice $3,000 I coulda have :(
I'm new to it, so I will take this as a lesson learned and hope my girl have more luck with this stock. I'm on a military op right now, so I'll wait till I get back to do some research before investing again.
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I'm new to it, so I will take this as a lesson learned and hope my girl have more luck with this stock. I'm on a military op right now, so I'll wait till I get back to do some research before investing again.
Me eh no maverick investor neither, I mess around on Ameritrade and made ah li'l bit ah pocket change back in the day before the market crash. I always had better use fuh mih money since then.... just last month they send mih ah notice saying they shutting dong de account because of inactivity. Only reason ah say yuh pull de trigger too soon... I woulda keep de stocks and hold onto it fuh ah few years... I think the value will increase (as they figure out how to turn the info they have into money) over time, rather than decrease.
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I'm new to it, so I will take this as a lesson learned and hope my girl have more luck with this stock. I'm on a military op right now, so I'll wait till I get back to do some research before investing again.
Me eh no maverick investor neither, I mess around on Ameritrade and made ah li'l bit ah pocket change back in the day before the market crash. I always had better use fuh mih money since then.... just last month they send mih ah notice saying they shutting dong de account because of inactivity. Only reason ah say yuh pull de trigger too soon... I woulda keep de stocks and hold onto it fuh ah few years... I think the value will increase (as they figure out how to turn the info they have into money) over time, rather than decrease.
bakes, ah telling yuh that is not how this game works. information depreciates over time. FB has had 5 years to make good on the info they have. truth is it is not easy to monetize this kind of info.
there is already a precedent - check gmail. google has been sitting on terabytes of personal emails and the best revenue stream they came up with is ad revenue. and google actually has industry leading analysis techniques which FB doh have.
fact is, a free membership base doh translate to money. like a padnah tell me, only a few companies figure out how to make money from the internet. ebay was one and paypal was the other. zynga might be a third, selling virtual products to suckersgamers. FB can try to be a middle man and skim something off of transactions or they can put up ads.
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#5200
Based on the subsequent course of developments, I thought the personal element to this story was worth sharing.
Zuckerberg To Leave Harvard Indefinitely
Looking for employees, facebook.com creator visits campus
By Sam Teller, CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
Published: Tuesday, November 01, 2005
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2005/11/1/zuckerberg-to-leave-harvard-indefinitely-mark/
Mark E. Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of facebook.com, dropped in for some on-campus recruiting and announced he would be dropping out of Harvard indefinitely yesterday afternoon.
Following in the footsteps of Microsoft tycoon and former Harvard student Bill Gates, Zuckerberg has chosen computers over campus life.
“I’m not coming back,” he said. Facebook.com spokesman Chris R. Hughes ’06 left open the possibility that Zuckerberg might return several years down the road.
Zuckerberg, formerly of the Class of 2006, will forego a Harvard degree to run facebook.com, the second largest online social networking site and the 10th most-trafficked site on the Internet, according to Hughes.
Zuckerberg spent the morning meeting with computer science professors for help recruiting engineers straight out of college.
“The professors can identify who the smart students are,” he said, adding that he would prefer to hire younger engineers rather than programming veterans. “The job lends itself to people with raw intelligence rather than industry experience. And if you’re coming out of college, you have a really good idea of what facebook is.”
Zuckerberg said he has made similar recruiting trips to Stanford and Berkeley. He will recruit at MIT today before heading back to facebook.com’s headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif.
He said working for a startup company like facebook.com should be considered a viable alternative to consulting or investment banking, two of the most popular career paths for Harvard grads.
“A lot of people know facebook as a site, but not many think of it as a cool company to work for,” he said.
But students expecting a non-stop party in lieu of hard work may be disappointed. Zuckerberg characterized his company as “humble,” and added that his salary is just $65,000 per year.
Employees will also receive facebook.com stock.
Zuckerberg declined to comment on how much the company is worth, saying only that its estimated value is “a lot.” This summer, MySpace, the largest online social networking site, sold for $580 million.
Zuckerberg concluded his round of interviews by meeting with two sophomore programmers who discussed the addition of a music and band promotion feature to the site.
One of those two students said facebook.com’s widespread appeal makes it an attractive company to work for.
“You got the brand name going,” Jonathan A. Hyman ’08 told Zuckerberg. “It’s a verb, man!”
After those meetings, Zuckerberg, dressed inconspicuously in an orange Puma sweatshirt, jeans, and Adidas sandals, took time to chat with friends and potential employees.
“Well, we’ll just sit,” he said, plopping down on the pavement outside the revolving doors with his friend and former facebook.com employee Andrew K. McCollum ’06-’07.
“Hey Priscilla, do you want a job at the facebook?” Zuckerberg asked a passing friend.
“I’d love a job at facebook,” Priscilla Chan ’07 responded, offering him a Twizzler.
+++ +++ +++
And, of course he married Priscilla a few days ago.
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bakes, ah telling yuh that is not how this game works. information depreciates over time. FB has had 5 years to make good on the info they have. truth is it is not easy to monetize this kind of info.
there is already a precedent - check gmail. google has been sitting on terabytes of personal emails and the best revenue stream they came up with is ad revenue. and google actually has industry leading analysis techniques which FB doh have.
fact is, a free membership base doh translate to money. like a padnah tell me, only a few companies figure out how to make money from the internet. ebay was one and paypal was the other. zynga might be a third, selling virtual products to suckersgamers. FB can try to be a middle man and skim something off of transactions or they can put up ads.
Me eh no financial guru so ultimately I could be wrong... however I really have to laugh at your gmail analogy. GMAIL?? When Google doh even have access to the data contained in the email? Fella we talking about a data trove about consumer habits that FB currently possesses. Members likes, dislikes, travel preferences, spending habits, profession, location.... tons of stuff that marketers have an keen interest in. This is precisely the type of information that can be used to tailor products and services to consumers.
Google has nothing like this... which is why they've come up with G+ to try and mimic what FB does. Gmail is by no means an appropriate comparison, all Google does with emails parse them with word recognition software to tailor third party ads to the owner of the account. The Google Sense advertisers doh know you from Adam, their ad "targets" you anonymously. This is a fully automated process that is nowhere similar to the direct marketing opportunities targeting specific individuals as offered by FB's data trove.
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bakes, ah telling yuh that is not how this game works. information depreciates over time. FB has had 5 years to make good on the info they have. truth is it is not easy to monetize this kind of info.
there is already a precedent - check gmail. google has been sitting on terabytes of personal emails and the best revenue stream they came up with is ad revenue. and google actually has industry leading analysis techniques which FB doh have.
fact is, a free membership base doh translate to money. like a padnah tell me, only a few companies figure out how to make money from the internet. ebay was one and paypal was the other. zynga might be a third, selling virtual products to suckersgamers. FB can try to be a middle man and skim something off of transactions or they can put up ads.
Me eh no financial guru so ultimately I could be wrong... however I really have to laugh at your gmail analogy. GMAIL?? When Google doh even have access to the data contained in the email? Fella we talking about a data trove about consumer habits that FB currently possesses. Members likes, dislikes, travel preferences, spending habits, profession, location.... tons of stuff that marketers have an keen interest in. This is precisely the type of information that can be used to tailor products and services to consumers.
Google has nothing like this... which is why they've come up with G+ to try and mimic what FB does. Gmail is by no means an appropriate comparison, all Google does with emails parse them with word recognition software to tailor third party ads to the owner of the account. The Google Sense advertisers doh know you from Adam, their ad "targets" you anonymously. This is a fully automated process that is nowhere similar to the direct marketing opportunities targeting specific individuals as offered by FB's data trove.
wdf ?! google own gmail, run and maintain the servers, have context-specific ads served up in the column next to the email but "they doh have access to the data in the email"??!? steups. educate yuhself a little before yuh talk.
...And FB drop below $30 per share.
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Ribbit actually Bakes is correct!
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Ribbit actually Bakes is correct!
DT, you are wrong. i can tell you first hand you are wrong.
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wdf ?! google own gmail, run and maintain the servers, have context-specific ads served up in the column next to the email but "they doh have access to the data in the email"??!? steups. educate yuhself a little before yuh talk.
...And FB drop below $30 per share.
So Google does read we email and them? Anything else de voices telling yuh? The funniest part in all ah dis, bless yuh heart... is that yuh actually believe yuh making sense.
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Ribbit- (I'm vacationing, so sorry for the delayed response)
You may be correct, but from what I have read from Google is that they siphon information from IP (header & packets). It's been so long since I've done Internet Protocol, but I think you can get a lot of info about a person by dissecting that information, without sweeping the actual content of the email. Couple that with your surfing and use of google as a search engine, your page will be filled with targeted tailored emails. Again you may be right and I'm not looking for an argument, just that my wife would bring me another bitter lemon with gin.
Why I did not invest in FB.
-Problems with production & sales of PC @ HP, more people going mobile.
-People at FB admitting before going public that their ads on Mobile are not doing as well as they thought it would.
-GM pulling it's ads from FB because the ROI was poor.
-FB not planning adequately to transistion into the Mobile Market.
-Way Way Way too overpriced to enter the market.
-40% of accounts are spammers.
-My broker saying NO!
-Thanks to Obummer, Pelosi and Reid since 2006, americans have lost a lot of Private Equity to support an IPO of this nature. Less people investing in the Market. Futures in Foreign lands are more and more profitable.
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wdf ?! google own gmail, run and maintain the servers, have context-specific ads served up in the column next to the email but "they doh have access to the data in the email"??!? steups. educate yuhself a little before yuh talk.
...And FB drop below $30 per share.
So Google does read we email and them? Anything else de voices telling yuh? The funniest part in all ah dis, bless yuh heart... is that yuh actually believe yuh making sense.
Not sure if the correct term is 'read', but not sure how else to call it.
Google, youtube, FB..everyone (but google has mastered it), runs an algorithm (changes every month or 2 to keep people like me (internet marketer) on our toes so we can't beat it) that scans your gmail, youtube watching habits and surfing habits. This is why they can tailor ads that appear when you surf, watch videos and check your email. You are tracked (probably not by name specific) but you'll be amazed at what people like gmail know about you and your habits.
With my partnership with youtube I have a ton of stats on every video viewer who lands on my channel.. broken down to age, sex, location, what videos he/she watched, preferences, how long they viewed videos/video, where they stopped watching .. info they collected when you created that youtube acc, that gmail acc..etc. How else could they provide, age,, gender etc to me?
This is not specific to any comments you made Bakes, but i'm speaking in general now to some things people spoke about in this thread.
Re: Facebook.
I won't pretend to know anything about investing, but online marketing and trends etc I know.. I stared working from home doing this online thing about 15yrs ago, when most people didn't even own a pc.
The kids are coming off facebook and have now latched onto Twitter and sadly they will get their hands on pinterest soon enough. the 35+ crowd are the ones on FB now and they have incredible buying power... not sure what FB is going to do with this. GM are idiots .. they simply didn't have the skills to properly work FB and get results. Spending millions does not guarantee success. The treated the FB campaign as TV and print media and didn't really take the time to connect and build relationships. I've been advertising on FB for 3 yrs now and my conversions are higher than advertising with google adwords (the ads you see on google search, youtube videos and within your gmail). Much cheaper and better roi. I've also advertised with Yahoo and MSN.
Draft is right, the BIGGEST growth is the mobile world. Take youtube as an example.. over 33% of all videos watched are done via a mobile device, two years ago that was less than 5%. However everyone is having a terrible time creating a delivery method which works. one that's non intrusive, creates an algorithm which will deliver relevant ads to the phone user and not slow down the load time on pages the user is trying to access. You'd think that the guys with the real money would have perfected it by now, but they (Google) is having a difficult time at it. The same can be said about FB and Apple. However Apple does have a working version of a mobile advertising platform which I tested on an app about 2 yrs back, but though it functions well, they (apple) can't convince advertisers to come on board. If FB can perfect the mobile ad delivery method I know they've been working on, it would do well as those people I mentioned above who have that buying power also access their FB pages with their mobile devices... and these are people who 'click' on anything shiny!
I recently started to test a mobile ad delivery company called Tapit, from down under and their system works well, but the payoff (for publishers) is very small as they too can't convince advertisers to come on board.
I strongly believe that the real money in FB is the data they have stored on users and the apps which runs off their platform. App and game developers pay a mint to FB to have their stuff on there. Additionally, the revenues from their advertising platform is solid and when they do perfect their mobile ad delivery, it will generate a ton of income for them. That said.. FB is only a success until the next thing comes around.. soon.
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Google, youtube, FB..everyone (but google has mastered it), runs an algorithm (changes every month or 2 to keep people like me (internet marketer) on our toes so we can't beat it) that scans your gmail, youtube watching habits and surfing habits. This is why they can tailor ads that appear when you surf, watch videos and check your email. You are tracked (probably not by name specific) but you'll be amazed at what people like gmail know about you and your habits.
Them algorithms can't be too accurate. Every time one of them ads pop up for me is offering me a woman to hook up with in the next town. How that related to my surfing habits is beyond me.
Seriously though I think that google does have similar access to information from mail, browsing, purchasing. They have profiles based on internet usage patterns similar to facebook. The advantage facebook has is the actual names. The patterns and associations of people based on their networks also allows facebook to refine and target better than google in theory and, I guess, the like/dislike is a form of direct survey that should be more powerful than passive measurements like internet usage pattern.
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Google, youtube, FB..everyone (but google has mastered it), runs an algorithm (changes every month or 2 to keep people like me (internet marketer) on our toes so we can't beat it) that scans your gmail, youtube watching habits and surfing habits. This is why they can tailor ads that appear when you surf, watch videos and check your email. You are tracked (probably not by name specific) but you'll be amazed at what people like gmail know about you and your habits.
Them algorithms can't be too accurate. Every time one of them ads pop up for me is offering me a woman to hook up with in the next town. How that related to my surfing habits is beyond me.
Remember that IP address and not machine (computer) is key here. See who else sharing your ISP and what they're looking for. Another thing with the email.. the language (text/keywords) used in emails can help trigger ads. For example.. if I were to go to YT and see what videos are recommended to me you'll see a ton of teenage related stuff.. my daughters may have accessed this on their machines, so using the same IP address it automatically thinks it's one of them. Well, until I actually log into my YT acc.
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Very engaging interview by Maria Bartiromo (CNBC) with NASDAQ CEO Bob Greifeld re: the IPO ... Rigorous questioning by MB. Should be available online shortly.
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well, ah win a bet on FB stock price as it fell below $20.
ha ha - jumbie, jdb, good luck trying educate dat yute.
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Facebook: Peter Thiel cashes in stake for $396m
One of Facebook's earliest backers has sold most of his stake in the social network, making a substantial profit.
Peter Thiel, a venture capitalist and Paypal co-founder, cashed in 20.1 million shares, raising $395.8m (£251m) last week, official filings state.
Last week was the first time since Facebook's float that early backers could cash in their shares.
The value of Facebook shares have fallen sharply since their debut two months ago.
Mr Thiel had already sold shares worth more than $640m during the flotation, taking his total profit to more than $1bn.
Last week, Facebook released 271.1 million shares as the first so-called "lock-up" stopping early investors and employees selling their shares expired.
Another 1.44 billion shares, owned by early investors and Facebook staff, are set to be freed up by the end of November as five additional lock-ups expire.
Facebook Inc. three month chart
price change %
19.74 -
-0.27
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-1.35
(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business/market_data/chart?chart_primary_ticker=NASDAQ:FB&chart_time_period=3_month&canvas_colour=000000&primary_chart_colour=CC0000&use_transparency=0&plot_colour=ffffff&cp_line_colour=1F4F82&margin_left=35&margin_bottom=20&margin_right=20&time_24hr=1&tiny_chart=1&tiny_month_view=1&logo_strength=light&y_axis_left=1&x_axis_plain=1&cp_line=1&cp_line_style=dotline&charting_freq=1_minute&co_dimension^width=271&co_dimension^height=170&small_chart_x_label_format=1&date_label_spacing=30)
Shares in the social network last night closed at $20.01, almost half the $38 that they floated at in May.
Despite the shares' dramatic fall, Mr Thiel, who owned around 10% of the firm thanks to his $500,000 investment in 2004, sold his shares for an average of $19.73.
Mr Thiel, who has sold 80% of his holding, according to his filing with US regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, still owns around 7 million shares.
Filings from venture capital firm Accel Partners, another early Facebook investor, indicated that it distributed over 50 million shares to its limited partners after the lock-up expired. It is not clear, however, whether the partners then sold the shares.
Data from financial information firm Markit indicates that the number of investors betting on the shares to fall further - so-called short interest - in Facebook is now at record levels.
According to Markit, 15.9% of the shares available to trade in the company are now being held by investors betting on a further share price fall.
"This is the highest it has been since Facebook floated," said Simon Colvin at Markit.
"It's not just over the past couple of days since the lock-up expired, but reflects a longer term negative sentiment."