read the EULA
Posted on 05/18/2012 3:46:10 AM PDT by Kaslin
Since it’s Friday, and there is a Facebook IPO scheduled to go off today, I feel obliged to write the standard “Why I hate the latest IPO” column.
Don’t get me wrong.
I think IPOs are great.
They are great job creators, first of all. Lots of the money raised by IPOs goes into hiring lots more people.
And an IPO’s liquidity event- where early stage investors get to cash in on the open market- is the reason why those investors took the risk in the first place. One of the major benefits of having stock markets like the New York Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ is to give early-stage investors a way to cash out of their investment eventually.
And the money raised by the IPO generally goes to business expansion, which means more jobs, more revenue, more profits and higher value.
That’s makes the Facebook IPO not just a social media event, but a socially responsible event.
But I still hate the Facebook IPO.
I work in digital media. I believe in digital media. “Dotcom bubble” aren’t dirty words for me.
An industry was created in that bubble; an industry that has revolutionized society and will continue to revolutionize society as much as the industrial revolution did.
I’m sorry that too many people misunderstood that just applying the appellation .com to, say, a commonplace item, like dog food- and ending up with a business named dogfood.com- wasn’t revolutionary, but rather a satire on what is wrong with bringing small, commonplace minds to big concepts like .com. But that’s just the small change of revolution.
And Facebook isn’t a dogfood.com business. It really is revolutionary.
But I still I hate the Facebook IPO?
I really, really do.
That doesn’t mean I’m a Facebook hater.
In fact, I love Facebook.
I would go so far as to say that Facebook made the Tea Party possible.
When I was growing up there was in every city about a dozen people who decided in each city what made the news and what was ignored. There were three TV news station, two newspapers and a handful of radio stations. And that was it.
The dozen people who decided what to air, or print, or broadcast controlled the news in every city, they made or broke people.
Dotcoms, like Townhall.com, have broken up that monopoly.
But it was only when conservatives got organized on social media outlets like Facebook that niche communities like the Tea Party, 912 groups, the Patriot Movement, could find and organize members both locally and nationally for direct political action.
That’s been an important part of educating people about the futility of the Obama regime’s economic measure. It’s the difference between the working-class hero worship that attended FDR and the pang that voters feel toward Obama today.
It’s no longer important just to be eloquent and backed by the liberal press. It’s no longer enough just to have the technocrats and scientists and the professional classes on your side.
Today you have to have substance.
There are more people in the population who didn’t go to the right schools, who don’t belong to the Paris Club exercising a commonsense restraint on political class- at least here in the U.S.
And because Facebook allows people like us to organize into real communities- communities that could replace geographic entities, like cities and states and even countries over a long period of time- change is coming whether we like it or not.
I like it actually.
For the first time in my lifetime, there is real, substantive debate about the size and scope of government, what the constitution means. And if people don’t recognize how the internet has made that possible by reducing the cost of communications so that it is affordable for everyone, then they are missing THE story of this short century.
Andy Warhol was wrong.
In the future all of us will be famous for much longer than 15 minutes.
And Facebook, in part, makes that possible.
I love that.
But revolutionaries have a tendency too often to loose their head. So I’d never consider buying the Facebook IPO anymore than I’d try buying any other social revolution.
And that’s the key: Facebook is revolutionary.
But is it a business?
Not yet.
I dunno about Facebook Kaslin, but “loose” I know, and it ain’t “lose”.
I don’t get what you mean with “loose” or “lose”. I do know the differences between the two though
I’m certain you know the difference, but the author either didn’t edit, proof read his work before posting, or doesn’t know “lose” isn’t spelled “loose”.
It’s a common mistake made by even infallible FReepers, but it drives NOT only me nuts LOL.
Yep. That is one of the most common misuses on the Internet and, it seems lately, in publications, as well.
Check the fourth to last line.
read the EULA
LLS
I am not smart enough to make a judgement call on Facebook,
but I view it more as a fad.
I have two Facebook accounts that I started, thinking that it would be a route for old friends around the world to find me, as I am now an international citizen.
Instead, all I have are list of hundreds of people around the world that Facebook says I may know, along with pages of other junk. I have no idea who any of the people are.
Maybe I have not learned how to use it, but over the last year nothing about it has impressed me.
As it stands, I can barely get up the desire to check my pages once per week.
My girl and our baby each have Facebook pages, and she is on them every day, posting dozens of baby pics, but she is contributing zero to Facebook or any of their advertisers.
Remember when CB radio was the hottest fad going in the 70s?
It bankrupted a number of companies.
Blasphemer! Heretic!
/s
In the short term it’s a loser because they will keep flooding the market with shares.
In the long run it’s a loser because eventually Facebook will go the way of MySpace. In fact I already see articles decrying how ‘uncool’ it is now.
For us 40-somethings it’s still cool but I wouldn’t invest in it.
It will be around for a while, but I think the founders are getting out why the getting is good.
What is their business model? How will those shares earn any money for their owners? What exactly are they selling??? Those are the questions I’d have to have answers for before I would consider investing in Facebook.
I find it fascinating. It's kind of cool to see how some really great people turned out.
“I find it fascinating. It’s kind of cool to see how some really great people turned out.”
___________________________________________
Maybe I can learn when there is “Facebook for Dummies”.
Took the words write out of my mouth. I have no idea what you're getting or what they sell, ad space? At least with Ford, you know what they're selling.
Then again, I don't Facebook, twitter or whatever, if it's not on FR, I don't really care.
i’ve been considering shorting it all week.
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