BusinessWeek says the founders of the Facebook are asking $2 Billion.
Now, my first reaction was "UFR", which is a term I've used a few times
here before, so you should get to know it. (First word utterly, last
word ridiculous).
But that's what I thought about MySpace at $580 million. Now, I kind of think MySpace might be a bargain.
Here's one way you could look at it. If Facebook really does have the
90% penetration in the college market I've heard, and it is the "go to"
place for communicating with friends on the web, then perhaps you could
evaluate it like a sum of the potential parts.
What would you pay for the dominent college version of Monster, Evite, Typepad, Match.com, etc, etc. [name your service here]?
Facebook has the potential to be all those things.
HOWEVER, it faces the Craigslist issue. If it becomes all those things or becomes full of ads, will it still be the Facebook? That's just
like when people say that Craiglist is leaving money on the table. It
might be, but it also wouldn't be Craigslist if it did charge for
everything and felt too commercial.
Secondly, they've got a major mobile challenge ahead of them. I've
talked to a lot of people doing mobile content and the question is
always, "But will you be able to get Facebook on there" as if that's
really hot content that will make your mobile service.
But frankly, a really kick ass mobile service (maybe Rave?)
could be the Facebook killer. If someone could tell me when my classes
where, when my friends were at the bar, and help me poke/wink/nudge
people via mobile that I see in the cafeteria, I think that would be
the college category killer.
So, I'm not going to say that someone couldn't make a $2 billion dollar
investment worth it, but its not a slam dunk by a long shot.