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Technology Stocks : Meta Platforms, Inc. (Facebook) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: manalagi who wrote (977)	9/1/2012 9:47:32 PM
From: slacker711	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3790

After FB becomes public company, MZ still owns 57% of the company, so he can do whatever he wants with the company. This just formalizes what we see in any number of tech companies. Paul Jacobs showed up to his CEO interview in shorts. Any chance he does that if his last name isnt Jacobs? You either believe in Zuckerberg or you dont. It's fine if you dont think he will be able to handle a public company, but his track record is pretty damn good. I have two fairly simple questions about Facebook. 1) Can they do a better job of monetizing both the desktop and mobile? My cursory understanding is that they have barely started the process. It will likely involve quite a bit of trial and error but they certainly have the opportunity to monetize a huge number of users/time. 2) Will the popularity of social networking fade in the next 5 years? 10 years? This is harder to answer. I dont think that there will be many opportunities to displace Facebook but reduction in average usage time would bring a direct hit to revenues. Beyond that, it becomes a matter of what is a fair price to pay for Facebook. They are currently trading at 37x this years estimated earnings. Definitely not cheap, but approaching a valuation where I think that there could be some opportunity. Slacker

To: manalagi who wrote (977)	9/1/2012 9:52:43 PM
From: Win-Lose-Draw	6 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3790

How does he have "no business experience" when he's spent the last half decade plus taking a company from nothing to $5B in revenue? Frankly, to my eyes, he has more meaningful experience than most Fortune 500 bosses.

To: manalagi who wrote (977)	9/2/2012 8:31:03 AM
From: slacker711	3 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3790

Ok, I'll respond to your bullet points. a. Unlock shares over 200M in Oct, 1.2B in Nov. b. Stock down over 50% from IPO price. This has zero impact on the ultimate value of the company. It might provide a trading opportunity or an entry point but that is all. b.Just to get back to $ 38, the stock has to appreciate 100%. I like to find a stock that will double in a year. What the hell does that matter to me? c. FB has 1B members, and cannot get into China. Where is the growth in membership which counts. There are 5.5 billion people outside of China. Facebook is the largest social network in countries like India and Brazil which will provide plenty of possible growth in future users. I dont expect astronomical growth in users, but they certainly havent tapped out the market. d. Mobile devices will be the next new advertising target, and yet it is difficult to monetize. Definitely true. However, difficult to monetize is different from impossible. One trend that will be in Facebook's favor is the move to tablets and these huge screen handsets. It is much easier to provide advertisement on a 4.7" S3 or an iPad/iPad Mini than on a 3.5" iPhone. If the stock falls to the low-teens, I think that the market will have decided that mobile users are worthless. I like one-way bets. e. Google and Baidu have one and two degree separations from the sale of product. FB like Zynga have only two degree separation. Therefore, GM has pulled it ads from FB, and more to follow. You continue to harp on this, and yet they do have $4 billion in revenue and the last I looked, hundreds of billions are spent on advertising on television. The fact that a Google search is worth more than a Facebook "like" is irrelevant. Facebook has more information on its users than any company outside of Google and the question is whether there is a better opportunity to monetize that information. Do you really think that Facebook has managed to hit the very best way to present advertisement in both mobile and desktop already? If not, then they have room to increase their revenue per user over time. Slacker