It's Deja Vu All Over Again: 1998 Returns!
An article over at the NYT brought back some happy memories:
Silicon Valley Start-Ups Awash in Dollars, Again
Internet companies with funny names, little revenue and few customers are commanding high prices. And investors, having seemingly forgotten the pain of the first dot-com bust, are displaying symptoms of the disorder known as irrational exuberance.
Consider Facebook, the popular but financially unproven social network, which is reportedly being valued by investors at up to $15 billion. That is nearly half the value of Yahoo, a company with 38 times the number of employees and, based on estimates of Facebook’s income, 32 times the revenue.
Google, which recently surged past $600 a share, is now worth more than I.B.M., a company with eight times the revenue.
With each passing day it looks as if Facebook will become the next Blue Mountain.com. If the name doesn't ring a bell, it was a small profitless dotcom with plenty-of-eyeballs acquired by a desperate Excite@Home for $780 million in October 1999 only to be dumped a short while later for less than 40 million.
Good times, good times!
Most people never ever learn.
Tell them our final offer is five kazillion dollars and not a penny more!
Hey I remember the Blue Mountain deal. That was one lucky family. Talk about being in the right place at the right time.
Posted by: Caprinardo Delirio | October 17, 2007 at 12:06 PM
We're gonna partay like it's 1999!
Posted by: Prince | October 17, 2007 at 02:03 PM
Milton, throw in the stapler and it's a deal!
Posted by: Gio | October 17, 2007 at 02:17 PM
Yes Bluemountain was profitless but it had a huge number of users sending its cards out to family and friends. Which is why @Home acquired it. They hoped to find a way to make money from those users, but it didn't pan out.
Posted by: Rolf Petersen | October 18, 2007 at 10:38 AM
Facebook Clusterfuck
Facebook CEO stole the code and idea:
http://www.02138mag.com/magazine/article/1724.html
Facebook losing trust, tracking users when they say they weren't
http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/140225
Beacon, their new ad platform, is getting crapped on by users, partners, and privacy groups.
Posted by: I hate facebook | December 04, 2007 at 10:35 PM
Facebook showed that it's pure evil last week.
The $15B valuation is just what they use to price their employee stock options. When they offered me a job three months ago, they wanted to use a $20B valuation. I told them to go fuck themselves.
Posted by: I hate facebook | December 04, 2007 at 10:37 PM
The valuation must have been done by some extremely optimistic analysts. Although the massive web traffic commands some serious respect the valuation should be based on a sites ability to generate a profit just like any other business. The internet is a very fickle place and sites like Facebook could collapse in a matter of months making them a risky bet for investors.
Posted by: Owain | January 16, 2009 at 04:37 AM