No, most know FB has massive traffic, especially with all the lawyers and private investigators tracking the fools who post on it.
I agree with the art analogy. It is worth as much as someone is willing to pay for it. For the record, it was Steve Cohen (yes, that Cohen) who bought the shark for 8 millions... http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/11086/
A 25% profit margin is nothing to frown upon. Most retail stores run 5% or less margins. It costs a shitload of money to run a traffic heavy site with images and videos. FB is building 2 very expensive datacenters right now. And just for the record, one of the initial investor companies in FB is a CIA cover company. FB's database is a goldmine for intelligence gathering. http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook From 2008: "Facebook's most recent round of funding was led by a company called Greylock Venture Capital, who put in the sum of $27.5m. One of Greylock's senior partners is called Howard Cox, another former chairman of the NVCA, who is also on the board of In-Q-Tel. What's In-Q-Tel? Well, believe it or not (and check out their website), this is the venture-capital wing of the CIA."
i know someone who works at facebook, in customer service. s/he's been to college (for discretion's sake, i'm avoiding specifics on gender). works hard in the way hard-working employees work hard -- e.g., not a risk-taker, not a visionary, just a very capable, competent cog-in-the-machine type. basically, s/he could just as easily be working at your local dmv. s/he's currently vested > 250,000 shares. by the time that company goes public next year, his/her personal net worth will likely be > $250 million. s/he's 25, by the way.
haha yeah right. there's no way a customer service rep would be given upwards of 1% equity, even if he/she were among the first 50 employees.
a few things caused myspace's decline 1. ads 2. too much control given to users. users would create lousy pages with loud music, poor-running scripts, and sometimes viruses 3. poor performance. for a while (2005-2006) myspace was so popular that their servers couldn't keep up. it was extremely slow and frustrating to use
Vanity and rationality have no bearing on the sealed bid animal spirits of an outrageously overvalued company. I like Zuckerburg's attitude. Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.