

Ask HN: Will you buy Facebook shares when it goes IPO? - gdhillon

Just curious if anyone will invest in Facebook when it goes for IPO?
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millzlane
No, I wouldn't. I feel there is no monetary value in Facebook. Okay so they
sell ad's and harvest lots of data. Big whoop. From what I noticed people who
visit Facebook do so because they simply want to communicate with their
friends or people they know. Not look at ad's.

<rant> The reason Google's model works is people go there to look for stuff.
because it shows me what I want with little to no effort. And it keeps getting
better! For example. Last week me and the CEO wondered about Superbowl Sunday.
"Just type in Superbowl 2012" I say. BAM! There is was, the first line in the
SERP's was the date of the Superbowl.

I believe the popularity of the site has been exaggerated to the point where
investors have given it lots of money because of it's global use. This only
worsens the problem and increases the false belief that Facebook is worth
billions. Take a look at the stats
<http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?statistics> with that many people
visiting surely it must be worth something...

"More than 350 million active users currently access Facebook through their
mobile devices"

I can tell you that more than half of these users only do it to see what their
friends are up to or see pictures and comments from friends. Because Facebook
does not give you a way to do it via email. This is no accident. They would
make no money on ad's if they did.

Want to see which photo your friend liked? Sorry you must login. Want to see
that comment on your status? Sorry you must login. Want to click that link in
the Android app? "Here, I'll open the browser for you so we can get you logged
in. -Facebook"

Wow, look how many people are visiting Facebook. You should invest!!

How many of us actually are influenced by Ad's on Facebook? How many of us
actually click Ad's on Facebook? How many of us BLOCK Ad's?

We visit Facebook to socialize not to look for stuff.

Eventually this bubble will burst... showing me ad's when all I want to do is
chat and share media with friends is pointless. This isn't a viable business
model. Now If Facebook starts their own search engine...I would definitely
think about it. For some FB is where the internet starts and ends. This would
definitely increase the value of Facebook and maximize their advertising
potential.

</rant>

~~~
callmeed
Here here. After poor results in the past, I tried Facebook ads again this
week. CTR is so low _I can't even hit my daily budget of $10_. Narrow or broad
targeting, it doesn't matter.

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blakehill
One notion that I didn't really see mentioned much in the comments so far is
the opportunity for facebook to expand their product. Facebook is essentially
a browser. Almost anything can now be done inside that browser. As Geee
mentioned, they are collecting so much data, they can expand their ad
offerings. Their search product could be more useful than google's. They could
become the hub of the internet where all shopping, media consuming, searching,
communicating is done.

Because the sheer numbers of users, I am LONG Facebook for the long-term, but
will not mess around with the IPO.

Right now, they're making about $2 a year per user. That's not very much. But
they're growing users agressively and have only begun to tap the potential of
the platform.

If you believe there's a greater than 50% chance they could execute well
enough to be successful in just one of the different verticals they could
expand to, then I think it makes sense to get in early on the stock.

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_delirium
No, mainly because I don't have any reason to believe that current forecasts
are underestimating their future growth. I do think they'll be quite
successful in the mid-term future, but I think that's already priced into the
stock.

I could be wrong, I just don't have any personal information or analysis that
leads me to believe I can beat the market on this one, so not enough reason to
divert money from an index fund to pick this stock.

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anonhacker
I will not be, its definitely overvalued in my opinion and I'd rather not risk
selling too late in the big stock dump.

Overvaluing in this case is a no brainer, everyone knows what Facebook is and
there will be buyers regardless of what price is set, in this case all the
investors, angels, VC's etc can cash out on their investments and lock in
profits. Later they can re-buy when the bubble pops if they have long term
interests...

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Geee
Maybe it could be time to iterate some opportunities for Facebook which will
make stock prices go up in the future.

In my opinion, it quite obvious that they will expand their ad network outside
of Facebook at some point, making it a serious competitor to Google's targeted
ads. Facebook has such detailed information about people that when they really
start to utilize it, it will crush any ad network out there.

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carlsednaoui
I agree with most here. Personally, I will consider adding Facebook to my
personal portfolio only once the stock price has leveled off.

The main attractive point of Facebook is that it is a service that is used by
so many - very few stocks have such a high market penetration around the
globe.

~~~
dholowiski
I agree too - there will be a huge boom and bust when they IPO, but once it
has time to level off, I think Facebook has plenty of room for long term
profitability. Of course they could flame out and end up the next MySpace too.
I'm not saying I'd invest my retirement fund in them, if I had one.

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noodle
I would consider it after the stock levels out. It'll almost certainly be
overvalued early on and see some heavy ups and downs; I don't have
time/interest to try and ride those waves. I'll wait until the knife hits the
ground before I even consider trying to grab it.

~~~
gdhillon
I was thinking the same but I do think you can make some serious money if you
grab it on 1st day at opening bell.

~~~
noodle
You _maybe_ could. You could also be late to the party and lose some serious
cash. Hard to predict when a price will stop growing and start bottoming out
on something volatile like this. Its just a game that I'm not experienced in
playing, so I'll leave it to those who are.

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United857
Food for thought about FB's longer term viability:
<http://robgo.org/2012/01/29/will-facebook-be-the-next-yahoo/>

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vintagius
No. I dont care if there is 850 Million or 1 Billion using it, what counts is
how much money are those people spending on facebook.

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jamesbritt
I don't care for them or their business model. It's skeevy; they've shown
themselves have little regard for personal privacy.

~~~
CommentTo
Ya, I agree with jamesbritt, especially about the privacy part.

I actually won't be investing in fb. I'm on fb only because of my startup's
presence. Otherwise, I wouldn't even be there. Not trying to bash fb or
anything, but fb was good around 2007-8. Now, things have changed so much,
it's not as much fun as it was before. Just my opinions..

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kruhft
No.

