

How Should Facebook Use $10 Billion in IPO Cash? - chunky1994
http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2012/01/28/how-should-facebook-use-10-billion-in-ipo-cash-2/

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newyear2012
Doing nothing is not an option. I don't even know why that was mentioned. You
can't sit on money like that. However, they probably will let the dust settle
for a few weeks or few months before spending their cash. At least I hope so.

They aren't going to pull a Microsoft and purchase a search company. Google is
not as much of a threat really. Search isn't Facebook's expertise _and_ it
isn't their market. They would be happy letting Google continue to drive
people around for answers on the web, while Facebook will continue to
entertain and be friendship/family/work/etc. communication/community focused.

So what _should_ they do with it? Focus on communication, community/community
needs, and gaming. They need to ensure that they keep the attention of their
existing community.

As for what to do with the cash:

1\. Hire some awesome user experience/interface people. And those people need
to work on timeline/profile view. The only reason people aren't complaining
more about it is that FB like Google does not really provide a customer
support experience that makes you feel like they actually care about your
opinion individually. If you've ever submitted a bug to FB, you know what I
mean. As for the interface, alternating left and right updates on the timeline
makes it tougher to read and find things. And the whole feed thing on the
right needs to go away. There should be a single feed page and a single
profile page with controls to change filtering on posts. That is so obvious
and ubiquitous elsewhere, so failing to provide a good interface for status
updates when that is basically the point is ridiculous.

2\. Hire some better folks to lead up API development. It is a huge mess right
now. Too many APIs that don't all do the same thing, and breaking Javascript
API with changes. Not cool.

3\. For M&A, focus on bringing resources onboard for community, ratings and
reviews, e-commerce focus. They could easily compete with Amazon and/or eBay
within the existing social/community framework and it is a better idea for
business than simply referrals, advertising, and selling imaginary sheep for
people's imaginary farms.

