Comments on: Attention: The social-web IPO window is now closed

By: Abdallah Al-Hakim

Abdallah Al-Hakim — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 18:35:12 +0000

good article with lots of valid points but it is still early, in my opinion, to be making definitive decisions about Facebook. The company needs to keep its user experience smooth while generating money. I think many agree that the future is in mobile which is where Zuckerberg and Company will need to innovate onto of their platform and deliver on the contextual, transactional and social nature of the web

By: Touring the Pacific Northwest

Touring the Pacific Northwest — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 16:01:49 +0000

I wonder if Facebook road a “Europe centric socialism wave” that is now dieing out. As I recall it seemed back in the early days of Myspace and Facebook that Facebook had gotten a big lift from the European community. As i had saw it at the time It was that lift that had moved its trajectory ahead of Myspace and drove the sheep to the site.

It was a casual observation on my part but now I wonder if Facebook will become a metaphor for the collapse of what has been a European centric socialist movement that over the past several decades infected much of the world including America.

Going forward I wonder if the socialism trend is about to die also, surely parts in Europe are dieing.

By: Sofia Fenichell

Sofia Fenichell — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 14:32:52 +0000

Btw I also agree that Facebook has more up its sleeve and we should be more patient. The problem is that stock markets are anything but patient. If they were to layout there metrics more clearly and their vision then they might begin to build a more patient and loyal investor base like apple has.

By: Sofia Fenichell

Sofia Fenichell — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 14:29:46 +0000

I agree with matt. Facebook is an ad server and payments business. I haven’t seen a clear articulation on how they will deliver on this vision from Facebook or the vc community. All we hear is mobile, mobile, mobile and local local local. But mobile and local have some of the weakest monetization. Not suggesting that won’t change. I just think people need to be careful to differentiate between what will accelerate you user adoption and what will make you money. Mobile is great to drive customer acquisition which may or may not lead to monetization.

By: luis

luis — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 10:56:18 +0000

Adrian I think nobody doubts Social Media numbers are astonishing. The point in here is where´s the business model? how is value created and monetized? the author has all the right to make some questions about it, in fact many people is wondering about it for years now.

By: aepxc

aepxc — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 08:21:44 +0000

No, the article is spot on. Indeed, we have even seen this before with Yahoo and Aol (indeed, their webmail + chat + content aggregation is a lot like an earlier take on ‘social’) – very large traffic, but free communities are very difficult to extract money from (and they will only become more so as the scope for advertising fades). Raw popularity (especially raw popularity of a free product – remember the demand curve) simply is not worth all that much by itself.

This segment of tech looks like its going to be the 21st Century equivalent of airlines – widely used, but barely profitable. All of this does not mean that we will somehow start going back to older technologies (why would it), but it does mean that social companies will never be among the financial titans shaping the future.

By: Jason

Jason — Sat, 28 Jul 2012 05:13:53 +0000

Facebook is still a very early stage company and most people don’t quite understand the long term vision. Instead of being in a rush to make premature assumptions, I think we should all step back and realize that Zuck is smarter than we are and there is a whole lot more to come.

By: Forest Donkey

Forest Donkey — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 20:40:45 +0000

Popularity doesn’t equal monetization. Social stock IPOs will continue to fall until they do something other than break out of the “shoot first, get a business plan later” mindset.

By: Bradford S.

Bradford S. — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 19:20:50 +0000

All I can say is that I completely agree with Matt, and hopefully this paves the way to more investment in the enterprise space, where things such as “revenue” and “business models” are known :)

By: Adrian Martinez

Adrian Martinez — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 19:16:31 +0000

The SociaI Web IPO , funding market is about as closed as a the 24 Hour , 7 days a week stores
in the United States.

The author is WAY off thinking Social apps are somehow done, or out of favor…

Social apps being done or out of favor flies
in the face of 900+ million Facebook users
, unknown millions of Craigslist users, Ebay /Paypa. users…the list goes on and on …

Maybe the author thinks Newspapers are about to take off ? Or …Horse and Buggies as the transportation means of the future???