[tj hughes]

Can't see it lasting... something better, more popular and more fashionable will come along. To think that FB will dominate social media is ignorant

[sazzabazza]

Haha, some launch day, the share price rose maybe 6%, then went back down. Anticlimax.

This was posted from The Student Room's Android App on my HTC Desire

[plimsolls]

I can't see facebook dying any time soon imo. Of course it will eventually go...

[Madmachine]

I can't wait for the end of facebook.

[Aphotic Cosmos]

Who do I trust to make a long-lasting and profitable social network:

Facebook: the upstart company with an incoherent advertising plan (i.e. towards 99% of it's funding) and souring relationships with advertisers and customers due to it's invasive approach.

Google: the most valuable advertising company in the world with an approach that knits together dozens of different services which people use on a day to day basis (Google+). Oh, and YouTube.

Hmm.

[cl_steele]

whilsti disagree on your point sabout it being the next myspace or bebo i do agree it is grossly over valued, it may have a huge viewer base but its revenue is a small dorp in a very large ocean in comparison to other companies out there of comparable value..

[Chumbaniya]

I think the valuation is absurd. Facebook has virtually no assets beyond its users, and users of a free to use service with a really poor clickthrough rate on adverts are extremely difficult to turn into decent money. The share price today values every member at over $100, which is staggeringly high given that there is absolutely nothing tying users into the service and facebook currently has no way to provide really noticeable advertising (static side adverts are much less prominent than, say, pre-video adverts on sites like youtube).

Existing users only continue to user the service because that's where their contacts are, and this is becoming less and less relevant as computers and smartphones are increasingly linking profiles between different services, meaning that a person doesn't even need to use facebook directly to have contact with their facebook friends. Something with a snappier interface is going to come along (Twitter already seems to be doing a reasonable job) and whilst I don't think facebook is actually going to lose many active members soon, the level of activity of those members is likely to decrease as they spread their communications over multiple sites, reducing the visibility of adverts on the facebook site itself and killing potential revenues. Facebook has already changed dramatically from a self-contained service to one where users are sharing content from a lot of other services. Basically, facebook acts as a fairly substandard combination of Reddit, Twitter and Google Calender, and once its users realise that their web of digital contacts can easily be maintained without being based around just one site, facebook has no benefit any more.

[almalibre11111]

of course ,im not on facebook and sometimes i feel like im from another planet

[PaddyT]

The most successful facebook related story since FarmVille. Advertising alone cannot justify this price and I suspect it will cave in eventually at some point. People are only flirting with the idea of complete openness at the moment but I suspect a lot more people will revert back to more privacy in the future.

[Kage]

I only really use Facebook to chat to friends who have started to use that service for chat instead of the usual MSN/Skype which in my opinion is still far better.

Skype contacts Facebook so I don't even need to be on the site to chat to the friends that have started using it.

If it wasn't for the fact friends used the chat function on there, I wouldn't be on it either.

[Hopple]

(Original post by Aspiringlawstudent)
$38 a seems a completely mad price to me for a company that is incredibly likely to fail, ultimately.

I see no reason why Facebook won't be the next MySpace or Bebo - I imagine another social network could easily become the new fad for a while at Facebook's expense.

What do you think?

Facebook is so highly priced because of its potential growth, but that relies on use of more and more personal data which is going to drive people away at some point. As soon as someone figures out how to export all facebook data to another website (shouldn't be too difficult unless facebook make it difficult for the actual user to navigate, and updates are easily followed) I think that'll draw people away.

[JonathanNorth]

It has so many users that it can potentially sell advertisements for any market in the world.

Whilst I don't agree with the valuation, I do agree it might be somewhat up there in the rankings.

But based on revenue, I can't see it being worth more than some other companies which actually possess assets.

Read these articles

http://newsfeed.time.com/2010/06/18/...ok-make-a-lot/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...yiQ_story.html

Facebook is pretty much at its' peak, and yet it is somehow valued so highly. I mean, I do see the potential, but I'd say that the valuation is far too overpriced. - Purely based on its' revenue.

[f1mad]

Quantity of users; yes. Quality click-thru's; nope.

It's a bubble, it'll burst sooner or later.

Don't believe me? Check out its failures in transforming the 'social graph': Facebook Deals and co.

In conclusion, massively over-valued.

EDIT: The 'social graph' is a load of bull crap for marketers, the 'interests graph' is far more lucrative: see Pinterest.

[winning11]

zuckerberg's smart to sell up a lot of shares now, calculated

he knows it's gonna eventually go downhill

so come on student room, let's seize this opportunity and make our own exclusive social networking site, all you coding comp science people, get to it, i will give you £20 start up money, before you liquidate my shares, i'm gonna sue your asses for a couple of billion

(just so we are on the same page here)

[zara55]

Facebook are in legal trouble again. It's come out that they have been harvesting private data from people's computers about the websites they browse using other browsers when not even logged in to Facebook and then retailing this data to advertisers. They are facing several investigations and lawsuits on this.

Expect many similar stories in the future, since the only way Facebook can now materialise profits for all these new shareholders is by ruthless exploitation of us, the people on whom they hold data.

Another interesting issue is that eventually, as with other Webcos, Facebook will collapse. When it does, all that data than a bazillion people trustingly gave them about every aspect of their personal lives will go.... where....?

[LETSJaM]

I think it is over valued. But I think the problem is that it will grow too big and too intrusive on people's lives.

Apparently in New Zealand they're testing a pay-for-privacy function. I can't see that going down well in the rest of the world.

<3 x

[Intriguing Alias]

Pfft loads of people voting yes because they're bored of Facebook or they 'dont like it'. This however, has nothing to do with its worth so this poll is completely useless really.

[RobertWhite]

I don't think it is. I can't see Facebook going anywhere at the moment and they have the potential to make a lot of money with just under a billion users and a few hundred million active ones. Their growth rate is slowing but that's probably because most of us have it now. I think it will be a good investment - perhaps risky in some aspects, but not for the next few years in my eyes at least.

[adam321]

Facebook will end up like Myspace Bebo ect.

[Hackett]

We will all probably look back in 5, 10 years time and say $38 was cheap.