Jack Bogle calls facebook a "fad"

shopster · May 22, 2012

Quote from peilthetraveler:

Thats a good point about AOL. Remember that just 12 years AOL was Valued at about $200 billion. Todays its valued at 2.5 billion.

Q.

What is the difference between Bernie Madoff and Mark Zuckerberg.....?

30 years.

s

S2007S · May 22, 2012

facebook says they have 900 million+ accounts, but how many of those are actually people using 2 or 3 or even 4 accounts, Im sure there are people on here using up to 5 or 7 different names.

R. Raskolnikov · May 22, 2012

Please explain WHY people would have multiple accounts on facebook? What would be the benefit of that? Are you even familiar with facebook or just enjoy ranting about it?

Quote from S2007S:

facebook says they have 900 million+ accounts, but how many of those are actually people using 2 or 3 or even 4 accounts, Im sure there are people on here using up to 5 or 7 different names.

S2007S · May 22, 2012

Quote from R. Raskolnikov:

Please explain WHY people would have multiple accounts on facebook? What would be the benefit of that? Are you even familiar with facebook or just enjoy ranting about it?

So you actually think there aren't multiple accounts on facebook, seriously?

Of course there is, I have seen numerous people make accounts for their family pets.. thats how sad and pathetic this has become...im sure there are over a million accounts just related to babies and pets on facebook.

nillionaire · May 22, 2012

Quote from R. Raskolnikov:

Please explain WHY people would have multiple accounts on facebook? What would be the benefit of that? Are you even familiar with facebook or just enjoy ranting about it?

I have 2 accounts, and made them friends. When I do something with my main account (such as "liking" something or posting something onto a page or someone else's comment), I sometimes log in with my second account just to make sure my privacy settings are set up correctly, or to see if Facebook broadcast my first account's activity. Facebook does seem to be a little buggy, because sometimes it broadcasts activity and sometimes it doesn't - there doesn't appear to be any pattern as to when it does and when it doesn't.

atticus · May 22, 2012

Quote from S2007S:

So you actually think there aren't multiple accounts on facebook, seriously?

Of course there is, I have seen numerous people make accounts for their family pets.. thats how sad and pathetic this has become...im sure there are over a million accounts just related to babies and pets on facebook.

+1

Of course you're correct. Every teacher (grammar to HS) that I know has at least two FB accounts. One for friends and fam and one for students. Both are utilized, but don't equate to two legit revenue sources.

RobertG · May 22, 2012

Another issue is also what kind of content you have between users on the internet. Do they share intelligent conversations on FB? the answer is 100% not. The conversations are of leisure.

Since their algorithm uses people's conversations for ads, it pulls stupid ads as well. I think that FB has a crowd that it would be very hard to capitalize on. Besides selling info about you to every major retailer, they are useless.

BUT, I also think this all move by the underwriter is deliberate.
They will squeeze the faith out of this stock, then rally it based on some new innovation to FB to make new highs on it. Same old..same old...

RG

TRADECOLOMBIA · May 22, 2012

Quote from R. Raskolnikov:

Please explain WHY people would have multiple accounts on facebook? What would be the benefit of that? Are you even familiar with facebook or just enjoy ranting about it?

i would say that at least 20% of facebook user's have more than 2 or more account's..

i have not foundation for this but i have been facebook user for several years, and i know a lot of people who also have been year users...

i can tell you several reazones for opening more than one account:

- if you want to hook up witouth your girlfriend knows.. you open another account..

- as some other user say to see if your status is updated and to see your original ACCOUNT from and outside perspective..

- if you want to harass somebody...

- open face for your business..

here in colombia facebook is very popular, so much that it would be as odd not to have one as to not have a cellphone number..

only people who don't have are farmers and mostly in town

however i don't remember to have seen a such long online fashion here, i mean fad webpages use to arrive here and people after 1 or 2 years get bored and leave, however facebook i have been seen it over more than 5 years and it keep's on growing... ( my grandparent's are opening accounts.)

peilthetraveler · May 22, 2012

Quote from R. Raskolnikov:

Please explain WHY people would have multiple accounts on facebook? What would be the benefit of that? Are you even familiar with facebook or just enjoy ranting about it?

I have 2 accounts on facebook. The reason being is that when I first joined facebook, I started playing some games and some of these games require you to have friends play the game too if you want to be a stronger player. Eventually I had about 500 people on my friends list that I didnt know and I would see all their posts about their daily lives. Some of it was interesting and some not at all. Then I realized all my real friends and familys posts were not showing up because it was drowned out by all these people playing games with me posting all sorts of stuff on my account(trying to get me to play new games, requests for items, ect). So I got rid of all those friends and created a 2nd account just for the games. Got 5,000 people on it and I dont know a single one of them. LOL.

Its just much better if you want to play games to have a 2nd account, otherwise people you dont know see everything you write. Games are the only thing that might keep facebook around for a long long time because I think people will always play video games.

SteveNYC · May 22, 2012

Quote from S2007S:

I don't know whats taking so long for more people to jump in and say this is entirely a fad, that's all it is and people keep getting sucked into it. Hopefully facebook is the last hyped social networking fad company to go public, do we really need more of these companies being listed, like zynga and groupon. This is just a fad, unless facebook can come up with a really quick way to monetize the use of its 950+ million members its pretty much useless. They should have been making strides with the amount of people using their service over the last 3-5 years, but haven't. All they can come up with just like any other social networking company is "advertising" that's it. And we have seen some of the statistics that show its not working as planned. Who clicks on these lame ads that are all over the net. I know I don't.

Facebook 'Classic Example of Investor Greed': Bogle
CNBC.com | May 22, 2012 | 03:25 PM EDT

Facebook's dismal initial public opening was a product of greed and dangerous investing in "fad" Internet social networks, Vanguard CEO Jack Bogle told CNBC Tuesday.

As the Facebook IPO continues to get slammed in the open market, the famed buy-and-hold value investor and index fund advocate expressed little sympathy for the wave of negative headlines Facebook is enduring.

"This is a classic example of investor greed, including institutional greed and underwriter greed and company greed," he said on CNBC's "Street Signs" program. "So the message is, when all the parties to a transaction are greedy, this is the kind of outcome you can expect."

Facebook [ FB 31.00 -3.03 (-8.90%) ] debuted on the market Friday and priced at $38, at the top end of its expected range. But trading opened a half-hour later than scheduled because of technical glitches at the Nasdaq trading platform, and the momentum only got worse from there.

While the stock finished its first day slightly higher, it got crushed on Monday, losing about 11 percent, followed by another substantial loss Tuesday.

For Bogle, the slide in the much-hyped Facebook is typical of the perils investors face when trying to pick individual stocks.

"Nobody can predict their price performance, nobody can predict their future value," he said. "While nobody can predict the future price of the total stock market, we can predict its future performance, which depends clearly and 100 percent on how the underlying American economy does, how corporations do in the long run."

While acknowledging that U.S. growth is likely to be slower than in the past, he said betting on the economy is still safer than putting faith in startups and IPOs.

"Stocks can do what they wish and to some extent the market can do what it wishes," Bogle said. "But when you look back at the grand wave of IPOs, the new economy and Internet and information age back in the late '90s and early 2000s, it's a fad. It's in the price of the stock and people are looking for a free ride upward in the new world. Truth be told, the old world persists in making its reality felt."

"I remain buttressed somewhat by Facebook and the other Internet and social network companies that are lined up out there," he added. "Watch out. It's a dangerous game."

Who cares.