14 Comments »Facebook used to have a valuation on $15 billion based on Microsoft’s investment in the company. According to Mike Arrington the new valuation is probably in the $3 - $4 billion range. According to Arrington and now Peter Kafka at Silicon Alley Insider has reported similar rumors.
One financial wealth manager is looking to unload some shares and apparently some Facebook employees are also looking to sell shares. From the sounds of it, some shareholders have enough shares that they’d be satisfied exiting now. These rumors also may make a potential acquisition more attractive to a large company. Mark Zuckerberg isn’t looking to sell though according to other sources.
While Facebook’s current cash flow doesn’t justify a $15 billion valuation, the launch of their platform payment system could easily justify a higher valuation. Do you think Facebook’s new payment system will help boost their cash flow substantially overnight?
The platform payment system is not going to make up the delta in valuation. If Bebo went for $850M then Facebook being worth 3B to 4B sounds about right based on the number of users. I think if FB wants more revenue they should work on their ad system and making it less buggy and more streamlined for larger advertisers and that will increase their valuation.
However it is easy to comment from the sidelines - I am sure they are working on it all.
Cheers - Eric
blog.pickuppal.com
The platform payment system is not going to make up the delta in valuation. If Bebo went for $850M then Facebook being worth 3B to 4B sounds about right based on the number of users. I think if FB wants more revenue they should work on their ad system and making it less buggy and more streamlined for larger advertisers and that will increase their valuation.
However it is easy to comment from the sidelines - I am sure they are working on it all.
Cheers - Eric
blog.pickuppal.com
this payment system - will it be available to the users as well
FBPay - a application to give money to your friends (and pay for ‘limited content’ e.g. fluff friend golden bonus, extra tokens or plays or improved winning (fb house, pulltabs, scratch and win etc) or just an application’s store like fluff friend t-shirts or mugs (cups) or pens
if it did this it be a competitor to spare change and the paypal application but take twitter and friendfeed and myspace they all copy each other ‘if i can’t beat it, i copy it!’
worth 15 billion - Microsoft will (want to) always pay over the odds / over evaluate because they [hoping it make a sale]
yahoo - yahoo is no way worth more then the facebook valuation (yahoo is a dead decaying horse) - Microsoft only really wants the userbase and search (to challenge Google)
Facebook - well facebook is the last main one that do not really have a backer/ owned by another company.
Newscorp has Myspace (and all its other media stuff e.g. fox and BSB/ Sky and newspapers),
TimeWarner/ AOL has Bebo & the popular AIM Screenname base.
Google has Orkut & youtube
Microsoft has its live spaces and all over windows live service [including popular liveID - hotmail] (but no real challenger in the social network stakes
Yahoo has it 360 service & flickr (popular)
only social network really missing is Hi5
this payment system - will it be available to the users as well
FBPay - a application to give money to your friends (and pay for ‘limited content’ e.g. fluff friend golden bonus, extra tokens or plays or improved winning (fb house, pulltabs, scratch and win etc) or just an application’s store like fluff friend t-shirts or mugs (cups) or pens
if it did this it be a competitor to spare change and the paypal application but take twitter and friendfeed and myspace they all copy each other ‘if i can’t beat it, i copy it!’
worth 15 billion - Microsoft will (want to) always pay over the odds / over evaluate because they [hoping it make a sale]
yahoo - yahoo is no way worth more then the facebook valuation (yahoo is a dead decaying horse) - Microsoft only really wants the userbase and search (to challenge Google)
Facebook - well facebook is the last main one that do not really have a backer/ owned by another company.
Newscorp has Myspace (and all its other media stuff e.g. fox and BSB/ Sky and newspapers),
TimeWarner/ AOL has Bebo & the popular AIM Screenname base.
Google has Orkut & youtube
Microsoft has its live spaces and all over windows live service [including popular liveID - hotmail] (but no real challenger in the social network stakes
Yahoo has it 360 service & flickr (popular)
only social network really missing is Hi5
Social features are becoming common and open sourced. User and investors are getting tired of the hype.
Social features are becoming common and open sourced. User and investors are getting tired of the hype.
Honestly I think the valuation of $15B was always a bit over the top but to counter that the valuation of $3B - $4B would most likely take effect if they company was to ever go public.
As for facebook’s cash flow problems, they needs to make some harsh decisions and stop running the company as a start up business. FB needs to now take a good long look at the future and start streamlining there core focus which has always been social networking and diversify there operations, such as qq.com. qq.com has total revenues topping USD $400M and the majority of the income doesn’t come from advertisements, it comes from there various other services, but in all fairness they do have a 1.3B market to compete in apposed to FB’s 300M.
Honestly I think the valuation of $15B was always a bit over the top but to counter that the valuation of $3B - $4B would most likely take effect if they company was to ever go public.
As for facebook’s cash flow problems, they needs to make some harsh decisions and stop running the company as a start up business. FB needs to now take a good long look at the future and start streamlining there core focus which has always been social networking and diversify there operations, such as qq.com. qq.com has total revenues topping USD $400M and the majority of the income doesn’t come from advertisements, it comes from there various other services, but in all fairness they do have a 1.3B market to compete in apposed to FB’s 300M.
$15 billion no way. $3-4 billion, hmm maybe. It’s hard to justify that price because of the current customers are young and broke. There valuation is based on future value only and things can change very quickly in the future. 5 years ago Friendster was hot, they were crushed by Myspace, now Myspace may get crushed by Facebook.
I’d place my money on business networking sites like Linkedin. At least their members have spending money now. If they get rid of that subscription service, make it more social, and provide more content to their members. They will dominate the market.
$15 billion no way. $3-4 billion, hmm maybe. It’s hard to justify that price because of the current customers are young and broke. There valuation is based on future value only and things can change very quickly in the future. 5 years ago Friendster was hot, they were crushed by Myspace, now Myspace may get crushed by Facebook.
I’d place my money on business networking sites like Linkedin. At least their members have spending money now. If they get rid of that subscription service, make it more social, and provide more content to their members. They will dominate the market.
when is this payments system coming out? i’ve been hearing a lot about it, but no one is really talking about it…
when is this payments system coming out? i’ve been hearing a lot about it, but no one is really talking about it…