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I see Facebook and other social networking mania as dotcom 2.0. Looks like Facebook will be able to make some money through ads and other online services (games, etc.) integrated on the site but I am not sure if the valuations put into Facebook, et. al. are justifiable.
Smart bunch of cookies over there. Wouldn't wanta second guess them. Their media and telecom (PRMTX) been a great performer over the years. Too aggressive for my tastes however. Down 46% in '08, but up 68% the following year. Hard to say where a Facebook or a Google or an Amazon is heading. Re: the later, who'd have guessed a few years back they'd be selling millions of Kindles (with a new $114 model on the way) and delivering e-books, newspapers, magazines and even near-continuous news feeds (Reuters & NY Times) to the masses addicted to the device. Thanks for the good link Maurice.
I don't care about social networking in the slightest - I find so much of it to be small talk, and I don't need to tell people about every little moment of my day. However, my view is that they may be viewed - from a different investment perspective - as a chance for data mining in many different forms.
I think ya hit it on the head Scott. Information = $$ in this new era. Am sure govt. will try to throttle some of the info gathering, but probably without much success.
Hank, more information does not necessarily mean better information. There is a lot of junk and useless and distracting and often bogus information out there.
People have complained about the amount of information that facebook posts about people, and you have this thing now where people can "check in" where they currently are...I mean, people can look at it in terms of advertising or other elements, but again, I just think there's other aspects potentially at play and that's why people have been a little concerned with some foreign investment (there was all manner of conspiracy theories regarding the Russian investment, not that there's anything wrong with Russian investment, but in Russia, you don't follow your friends on Facebook, your friends follow you - or something.)
Agree Investor. But the name of the game nowadays is targeted advertising. Advertisers target individuals with ads based on the data they collected/purchased. Target ya when your surfing the web but also through mailing, cold calls, etc. We could talk all night about how to keep them from tracking you on the web, but the truth is most of us don't take enough precautions. In Michigan, cant walk into a store without somebody trying to give you a "free" store card, good for some type of savings. Think about it. When they scan that card they know what you bought, what you paid, when you bought it, where you bought it, what items you bought together, what your total charges were, how you paid for it. Plus on the card they already got your name, address, phone, age, gender and who knows what else? Scott's point was that Facebook collects alot of personal data and is in a position to sell it. Don't know if they do sell it now, but they got it in their hip pocket and that's worth something.
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Am sure govt. will try to throttle some of the info gathering, but probably without much success.