[dasil003]

I'm not rushing out to buy Facebook, but the arrogance and condescension of this article is overwhelming:

> valuing Microsoft (MSFT) when they went to IPO was tricky - back then what was going to happen was hard to predict. Valuing Google was a lot easier, and valuing Facebook is a cinch.

Right, it's just a cinch. The ineffectual ads Facebook has been toying with are the only endgame. There's no possibility they could you know, improve the ads, or completely overhaul them, or make money from other channels. I mean the guys who built the biggest, stickiest social network in the world that destroyed all the myriads before them could never possibly come up with a fresh idea for how to make money.

Instead let's just do a traditional market analysis so that we can feel very smug and turn the snark up to max.

[tomgallard]

Couldn't you say the same about any company though? "Sure XYZ are doing badly, but they've got some really smart guys there, all they need to do is come up with a fresh idea for how to make money"

We can only really judge Facebook on what they are doing now, not a revolutionary new way of making money which no-one has yet thought up.

[dasil003]

No you can't. Facebook is still growing and still innovating. They have more user data and more user engagement then anyone and they're sinking their hooks ever wider via social widgets and authentication services. They haven't hit a wall yet, and there are still many potential areas they are well positioned to expand into.

Everyone is concerned that they are plateauing, but that's just because of the tremendous numbers they have. Just because they're running up against the limitations of human population at this time doesn't mean the product has plateaued.