Facebook worth 60 billion someday?

[5yrtrader]

I used to be in this camp (thinking its overvalued) but I have finally changed my mind.

I used to think that Facebook was just a fad that was coming after Myspace and Friendster. It seems to have much more staying power and continues to gather steam. Still, the next best thing could only be a couple years away, but the longer it takes the more cemented in its position facebook becomes.

Yahoo's market cap is $21 billion, Google's is $193 billion. According to this (http://www.alexa.com/topsites) facebook's traffic falls between those two, so based on that alone you would expect its market value to be between those two.

However, I have heard that although FB has similar traffic to google people tend to spend much more time on facebook, the stastic I heard was that 10% of time spent on the internet is spent on facebook. Also the level of information they have on someone goes way past what google and yahoo are able to collect. If you consider all this it is possible that the value of Facebook is several times that of google.

Just the thoughts of a convert.

5yr

 

[CET]

Quote from risky63:

Seems too high to me........
500 BILLION
holy sheepshit batman...
is this the sign of a top?

Actually it is a sign of his shitty memory. The figure most reported these days is $50B. FB needs much more revenue to justify that. They have 500M+ accounts, not active users. They will not admit how many accounts are inactive, since they no longer let people delete their accounts. That is all part of the deception leading to the IPO.

FB is overwhelming proof of how many low self-esteem people there are in the world.

 

[Ghost of Cutten]

Quote from ksmetana:

20 - 60 billion sure

Everyone alive will have Facebook one day

No they won't - many people refuse to use it due to privacy implications. Just like many people were ex-directory from the phone book, and Facebook is way more invasive.

Also, all it takes is one better competitor and they are toast, like myspace, friendster, and all the other businesses with no barrier to entry.

 

[Ghost of Cutten]

Quote from 5yrtrader:


Yahoo's market cap is $21 billion, Google's is $193 billion. According to this (http://www.alexa.com/topsites) facebook's traffic falls between those two, so based on that alone you would expect its market value to be between those two.

No - the value is not based on traffic, it is based on a multiple of future cashflow. Traffic is worthless unless it can be converted into profit - in fact, it is worse than worthless because it costs money to generate.

The question is how well can Facebook monetize its userbase - that depends on what customers are prepared to pay for, how much intrusive monetisation will they tolerate before defecting, what competition springs up, and so on.

 

[BwPirt]

I had read that Facebook actually topped Google for most visited place on the net.

Also, The 500 Billion number that the previous poster threw out there was probably 500 million that Goldman Sachs invested in Facebook.

 

[hiptogo]

LOL facebook gotta keep its "cool"
(from the movie) can't put a real price on it.
60 billion -600 gazillion. who knows...til the
next hit social media thing comes around ;P

 

[krazykarl]

too many people on there with 3-4 accounts, not to mention all the bot accounts. Sure, they have 500 million accounts, but I'm sure the real, unique user number is 20-30% under that, easy.


China has it's own version of FB so forget about talking about China growth.

 

[MarketMasher]

I think it is interesting that as browsers move toward MORE privacy (private browsing mode added), FB is the opposite, allowing developers (advertisers?) to access home addresses and phone numbers.

It depends on when people get pissed that whatever they do on FB is going to be sold to....whomever.

But without that, how does FB make money?

 

[BwPirt]

Quote from MarketMasher:

But without that, how does FB make money?

Local advertising all over the world. Anywhere you are there can be advertising based on your location and interests. Companies small and large will pay top dollar for that, as it would have higher returns.

 

[atticus]

Quote from granville:

If every person on the planet bought everything they own from fb, then it could be worth a lot more. I think it was valued at 500 billion not to long ago.. per some memory of an article I read. Seems too high to me.

Those dot-shot valuations are a function of the convenience premium on smaller investments. You cannot value the company on some arbitrary vcap %. The stock trades with some decent otc liquidity.