Facebook stock debut fails to sizzle

A site that doesn't sell a thing, that has no contract with its customers, that can be "out" instead of "in" in a matter of weeks and that can be deleted with only one click is worth $ 105b? I am no expert at all, but there's something wrong here.

Value of company divided by number of user accounts = 100 dollars. Doesn't sound worth it to me.

I hope it is not the way of the future. I already see Facebook losing ground. Once upon a time a useful tool until they got greedy and decided that what we so enjoyed about it had taken away and redesigned for the money to start pouring in for them. Facebook became a tool to spy upon us and market us whether we approve or not. At some point it will fade from favor, but only when something better replaces it, just like facebook replaced MySpace. Facebook has made too many changes that have turned the faithful off. It will be a while before it totally fades, but it's heyday is over. It's probably a fad. I'm thinking that the really young kids of today won't be thinking about or using Facebook.

First off, I'm not on Facebook. Second, the timing of the IPO isn't great due to current market conditions. BUT, they have an expanding, and very large worldwide subscriber base( and not in China yet ) If they can continue to figure out how "monetize" their business, in the long run $38 will be a very.very cheap entry point.

paulinusa May. 19, 2012 - 08:37AM JST If they can continue to figure out how "monetize" their business, in the long run $38 will be a very.very cheap entry point.

Facebook relies on an old internet business model, that is display ads. Display ads generally hurt the user experience, and are also not very efficient at producing revenues. Facebook makes about 1/10th of Google’s revenues even though they have 2x the pageviews. Bad news for Facebook is that, if there is one consistent similarities in internet advertising, the ads work dramatically better when consumers have purchasing intent. Google makes the majority of their revenues when people search for something to buy. Can't say that about Facebook.

sfjp330:True enough, but as an example, gaming company Zynga contributes something like 10% of Facebook's revenue. So there are other potential possiblities besides clicking on ads.

Following common trends if IPOs, after an initial surge in share price there's typically a settling to a lower price. So basically, those who can get in first(investment banks, mostly) profit from selling off in early trading, but common investors get in too late. Watch the share price fall in the short term, and then stay low. Pass.

Facebook: The next MySpace.

side note: Zynga fell hard, too.

I heard reports of people in the Bay area going on buying sprees of expensive items in anticipation of making money off the IPO. I guess they didn't do too well in history and look back just a few years at what happened with the housing market, or the tech bubble. Now we will hear stories of how some people who overextended themselves in anticipation for this IPO need another bailout.

Glad I didn't fall into the hype.

Facebook, google etc..the next tools governments will abuse to control the masses. Call me paranoid but its already happening

When Facebook starts using my inform liberally for advertisers, or many adverts in the social network, or for govt....going to close my account and say bye bye. Forget about Middle Kingdom, it has Weibo.

This giant IPO is a failure for investors, and a great success for those cashing out. FB is going down once Morgan Stanley, key underwriter, stops supporting it. Priced at 100 times of sales, not 100 times of profits is only for emotional dreamers, not objective investors.

Over rated and over priced, expect facebook to go the same way as those other social networking sites who's names now escape me, was one of them beebo, or myfail or something?

suckerberged!!

BOOM!

Nothing like making a few million dollars in a couple of hours!

BOOM!

mr_jgbMay. 19, 2012 - 01:04PM JST

When Facebook starts using my inform liberally for advertisers, or many adverts in the social network, or for govt....going to close my account and say bye bye.

You should have closed your acc a longtime ago. Your comment should readWhen the govt started using information from X Y and G website I closed down.

People gave their personal info freely (or foolishly) and made a few people rich

Faceplant, ha ha ha.

Facebook will eventually go down. Anyone else getting annoyed now with their feed just being filled with pointless pictures? I barely use fb now and when I do its just to respond to family and friends through the inbox system.