Facebook to IPO for $5b or more? 1
I’m not sure what to think about this.
On one hand, it’s the validation that an entire industry has been looking forward to for the past three or four years. It’s the legitimacy that social media service providers have been looking for ever since the Facebook released its Beacon update to promote more advertisements on its service.
On the other hand, I don’t even really use Facebook anymore. I loathe the requirements of certain websites that ask me for my Facebook credentials. I haven’t made use of the messaging solution that made waves when Facebook.com email addresses were nothing but unconfirmed speculation.
But it’s helpful to remember that Facebook isn’t about the individual users anymore. It’s about the society of people that use the Internet in any sort of regular capacity. Even though I might not like everything that it stands for and the manner in which all of its information is used to build the perfect ad-serving system, there are hundreds of millions folks that use it everyday.
That’s why the IPO is speculatively going to be in the billions of dollars: Facebook has become the best web advertisement serving mechanism on the web. It’s not about it being the best space for a user to share their life’s particulars. It’s not about connecting with people that you haven’t talked to in years.
Facebook will ultimately become about what kills the enthusiasm behind many social networks that try to expand and grow beyond their station: the bottom line.