Facebook IPO Beyond the Hype

Its always amazing to see retail investors flock to a high-profile IPO only to feel cheated when the price doesnt take off like a rocket. The rather muted reactions at the end of the first day of Facebooks listing showed that people havent come to terms with the fact that it is after all a company like any other.

However many likes you may have posted about their IPO news, you now have to settle down without giving them too many pokes and see if the management team can monetize their 900 mn users in ways that most marketers may not even have thought of yet!

The San Jose Mercury, which serves as the unofficial spokesperson for the collective thoughts of Americas Silicon Valley, reported that the IO would surely cement the status of Facebooks 28-year-old CEO as a next-generation icon. His worth now in excess of $19 bn, more than Googles legendary Larry Page, Zuckerberg is the new poster child of the valley having created irreversible new ways in which people interact for fun and work.

However he and his team will have to put up with the fact that every action of theirs will now be put under a microscope, with a fledgling business model that may have delivered a billion dollar on less than $4 bn revenue but is now expected to find newer and newer ways of growing top and bottom lines and delivering on the hundred-billion-dollar hype!

Its rather interesting that the day the IPO listed, the buzz amongst Facebook users in India centered around three relatively inconsequential occurrencesthe unseemly acts of movie star Shah Rukh Khan and tycoon kid Sid Mallya in IPL, the almost comic walkout of Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee from a TV channels live interview, and the additional weight that movie star Aishwarya Rai Bachchan was seen to be throwing around in a rare public appearance.

One wonders whether the political imbroglios in India and Europe, the economic shadows that are looming large with the potential departure of Greece from the Euro zone and the real issues of education, health, and poverty that continue to plague our country and many parts of the world have any relevance at all to the Facebook community who let the peripheral issues rule their comments and thoughts! Hey, as an active Facebooker and Tweeter I am as guilty as the next person of this!

So will Facebook rule the internet waves for the foreseeable future? Amazon and Google and many more have shown their ability to expand their franchise and do well but many more have dwindled, both in web presence and the value provided to their investors.

However Facebook IPO fans can take heart from what Rebecca Lieb, a digital media consultant has said, One thing that keeps people on Facebook is the fact that everybody else is on Facebook. And in a world where community is everything, maybe that provides the pathway to a brilliant future!