Facebook debuts, social-networking stocks fall

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Overhyped, over-valued, and considering that they produce no real value, no goods, no lasting qualities, facebook is a symptom of how ill our economy works and how ill it already is beign designed.

Exactly. This has the .com crash all over it. I do not invest in the virtual world.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Bull. While I agree completely with almost everything you've said, including the whole hundreds-of-friends crap, it depends on how you use it. My friends on FaceBook are exactly the same as my friends on Subsim: Friends. Either some one I know or have known personally, people I've worked with online or seen post enough online to consider them actual friends. FaceBook is my only regular contact with my kids, and with friends in other cities. If you can't tell the difference then you should stay away from it.

Unfortunately you're right for the most part. Most people don't seem to be able to tell the difference, so they do have hundreds of "friends" whom they don't know and don't really care to. All my friends are people I care about.

My fault. I lacked precision on the "friends" part. I wanted to refer to the infamous "friends" button that makes strangers your so-called "friends".

[kranz]

Originally Posted by kraznyi_oktjabr

I was quite shocked when FB recommended my doctor to become my new "friend". No common friends, no profile information with any clue that I even knew him.

maybe you have your doctor's email in your gmail's address book?

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Originally Posted by kranz

maybe you have your doctor's email in your gmail's address book?

I don't have gmail. I have hotmail and yahoo! mail of which yahoo! has doctors email. I have used my hotmail account when registering to facebook and although yahoo! mail address is listed in profile I don't recall authorizing transfer of info from yahoo! address book.

That what you said is most likely explanation.

[kranz]

I don;t have FB. My friend had my non-gmail address in his gmail address book linked to her FB account. I used to receive e-mails with invitations to FB based on the following connection: my email-->people who had it in their gmail books--->her FB.
Wicked, still logical.
By now that must have had linked more that gmail into their "web"....

[Skybird]

11% drop after two days. Not bad.

Meanwhile a group action has been filed over massive prvacy violations. They could cost facebook several billions.

And in Germany it is reported a federal offcial for media law and rights has warned during the public presentation of the yearly "Grundrechtereport" in Karlsruhe that even if you are not registered at facebook and visiting the site as a guest only, using any of the buttons - the like/dislike button - will automatically target the visitor for Facebook prifilign action and the site startiung to track his activities for at least 90 days, storing the data and saving it for use if the visitor later should return and register an account.

In other words, you must not even register there to get spied on, just surf the site and the FB machine embarks on you already.

How do hackers call sites that you just need to visit intentionally or by chance, and the visit alone already launches an attack on your system? Drive-by attack or something like that it was?

Datenkraken like Google and Facebook I just wish as harsh a crash frokm high altitude right on their faces, and as tough as possible. IMO their drives to gain data for profiling, and bypassing elemental rules of politeness and even nation's laws protecting privacy, are deliberately criminal. And I do not know what should worry me more: these data in the hands of government agencies - or in the hand of private business that even avoids monitoring and public counter-copnhtrol of how these data get used.

[mapuc]

There are some program, that you can install to prevent Facebook from tracking you.

The most used is Facebook blocker-Can only be used in Chrome, Safari, Firefox and opera. Do not work with IE.

for those who use IE there is Do not track +

Markus

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Skybird

My fault. I lacked precision on the "friends" part. I wanted to refer to the infamous "friends" button that makes strangers your so-called "friends".

I agree for the most part. I just get defensive where my kids are concerned. Yes, the "friends" button is an invitation to disaster.

"I have eight hundred and seventy-two friends! I've only met three of them, but you know..."

[Onkel Neal]

If FB falls enough, I'll certainly load up on it.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

What I don't get in this is that based on Finnish media Facebook is not planning any dividends in near future (if ever). What is a point in owning a company which does not generate any income for you? How such company can be more valuable than many industrial corporations?

Facebook's "stock" sounds more like chip in poker table than legitimate trade instrument. Gambling on imagined value.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by kraznyi_oktjabr

What I don't get in this is that based on Finnish media Facebook is not planning any dividends in near future (if ever). What is a point in owning a company which does not generate any income for you? How such company can be more valuable than many industrial corporations?

Facebook's "stock" sounds more like chip in poker table than legitimate trade instrument. Gambling on imagined value.

FB generates tons of money, how could it not? It has over 500 million active users.

Yes, investing in any business is a gamble. You are taking a chance that the company will succeed and create value and profit. Just imagine you and I are neighbors, we live in a town where there is no taxi service and a lot of people who don't own cars. I may make a study and show that a taxi service would be a valuable addition to the town. I ask you to help me buy 4 cars, hire drivers, and radio equipment. You invest an amount with an agreement to share in the profits. If I run the business well and I am right about the demand, we make money and the town has a taxi service. A gamble? Sure, so is life.

[kraznyi_oktjabr]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

FB generates tons of money, how could it not? It has over 500 million active users.

Yes, investing in any business is a gamble. You are taking a chance that the company will succeed and create value and profit. Just imagine you and I are neighbors, we live in a town where there is no taxi service and a lot of people who don't own cars. I may make a study and show that a taxi service would be a valuable addition to the town. I ask you to help me buy 4 cars, hire drivers, and radio equipment. You invest an amount with an agreement to share in the profits. If I run the business well and I am right about the demand, we make money and the town has a taxi service. A gamble? Sure, so is life.

I understand this. What I don't like in situation (if information is correct) is that FB has no plans to pay dividends to investors. Therefore those who invest to company won't get any profit from their stocks unless they play speculation games.

Power in company is still strictly in its founders (and his friends) hands and with those stocks that have been sold in stock exhange has no power to overrule their decisions (as there is - at my knowledge - not enough stocks in sale to get past 50% without old owners support).

This may ofcourse change - or then not.
EDIT: From:

Facebookin liikevaihto oli viime vuonna 3,7 miljardia dollaria. Yhtiö ei ole koskaan jakanut osinkoa. Se ei aio maksaa osinkoa myöskään pörssiyhtiönä.

Translation: Facebook's revenue in last year was $3,7B. Company has never paid dividend. Its not planning paying dividend as stockcompany either. (quick translation, finns jump in and correct)
EDIT#2: Just to make sure that I get understood correctly: Facebook has effectively stated, that its not going to share its profits with those who invest into company. Same as if I helped you to establish that taxi company and you wouldn't share profits with me.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Neal Stevens

FB generates tons of money, how could it not? It has over 500 million active users.

Yes, investing in any business is a gamble. You are taking a chance that the company will succeed and create value and profit. Just imagine you and I are neighbors, we live in a town where there is no taxi service and a lot of people who don't own cars. I may make a study and show that a taxi service would be a valuable addition to the town. I ask you to help me buy 4 cars, hire drivers, and radio equipment. You invest an amount with an agreement to share in the profits. If I run the business well and I am right about the demand, we make money and the town has a taxi service. A gamble? Sure, so is life.

Just creating money is not enough, Neal. Have you nothing learned from the abstract-value-hype of the past years? It's bubbles. Money needs to be covered by real value. But FB - amongst other stockmarket services - does not produce real value, just abstract value. Which means a devaluation of money.

You may take the gamble, and yes, in some case people can make a fortune. But only at a price. And that is the cost to the higher common good.

Alchemy wanted to make gold of lead. Stockmarkets want to make real value from nothing, which basicvally is the same thing. But all they do is make abstract value from nothing only (=mortagges on the future, that is), or real value that does not live beyond the moment, and thus is nothing to build a future on. Even if some ga,mbler makes a fortune from some present deal, the cost for that deal does not vanish - it just get shifted and hidden deepn inside the system, and produces a cost that gets payed by others, and/or the community. Such short-living welath that goes away again, we call hypes. A hype is nothing to buoild your community's future on. Once the hype collapses, the community'S gains from it collapse as well.

From nothing comes nothing. Do not spend more than you earn. Do not tansfer servicing youre debts endlessly into the future. Spend a little less than you earn, so that after servicing possible debts and hopefully kill them sooner or later, you have some rest left to save for bad times. - That is what reasons dicates a sane mind. Stockmarkets and endless-growth-apostles hate it. Which makes me conclude that the stockmarkets do not operate on the grounds of sanity and reason. Maybe that is where the troubles are coming from. Because some origin they must have come from, the problems do not come from nowhere, as if all by themselves.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Just creating money is not enough, Neal. Have you nothing learned from the abstract-value-hype of the past years? It's bubbles. Money needs to be covered by real value. But FB - amongst other stockmarket services - does not produce real value, just abstract value. Which means a devaluation of money.

FB's value is their userbase, the platforms they create, and their acceptance as the king of repeat visitors. They essentially have all the land alongside the information highway and plenty of companies want to erect billboards on this land. That's their value, and as long as FB manages this well, they will make money. Real money, not abstract

Originally Posted by kraznyi_oktjabr

I understand this. What I don't like in situation (if information is correct) is that FB has no plans to pay dividends to investors. Therefore those who invest to company won't get any profit from their stocks unless they play speculation games.

Power in company is still strictly in its founders (and his friends) hands and with those stocks that have been sold in stock exhange has no power to overrule their decisions (as there is - at my knowledge - not enough stocks in sale to get past 50% without old owners support).

This may ofcourse change - or then not.
EDIT: From:
Translation: Facebook's revenue in last year was $3,7B. Company has never paid dividend. Its not planning paying dividend as stockcompany either. (quick translation, finns jump in and correct)
EDIT#2: Just to make sure that I get understood correctly: Facebook has effectively stated, that its not going to share its profits with those who invest into company. Same as if I helped you to establish that taxi company and you wouldn't share profits with me.

Not all public companies pay dividends, a lot of investors will not buy a stock unless it has a structure for dividends (Mookie can explain this better than me).

But, if you buy a share of stock @ $30 and 5 years later it is valued at $90, you have tripled your investment. You can sell it, money!

"unless they play speculation games"

What does this mean?

[Gerald]

FB has lost 17 percent of its value.