Mark KookyZoookerberg is holed up like Yassir Arafat eating plums and sipping wine coolers while his salesforce trots around the globe trying to meet numbers met by the yutz’s at Microsoft and the VC’s that keep pumping money for servers and wine.
I could go buy a bazillion impressions on Facebook for 3 cents a piece. I won’t, because even that’s overvalued based on what I would get back. Guaranteed the brands are figuring out how to go direct and the agency model is screwed once the brands get wise and focus on engagement and not impressions.
That said, Facebook and YouTube (actually could be someone different, but same industries) WILL solve the revenue problem so the quarterly noise surrounding met and unmet revenue issues is just that, noise. Actually – Ashkan as usual gives you an example of how small the problem really is .
It’s just sad that the defections from both companies will be massive and I guarantee you the internal hate must run deep for PookyZooky from his lieutenants.
YouTube has no problems other than the price Google paid for it. Facebook has only three problems KookyZooky Baby Jesus, Microsoft’s breath on it’s neck and the valuation.
Not the end of the world, just more opportunity for the little guy’s like you and me.
Days like today remind ME why I am LONG social networking and web video (at $3 billion, I will also buy some facebook stock if anyone is selling).
To understand why Apple is making a concerted effort to appeal to BlackBerry users, consider an analogy to the board game Risk. RIM has a large army (read: users), but they’re all massed together in one spot on the map. They care about email, they care about exactly the sort of enterprise features Apple has announced for the iPhone, and they are known to be willing to pay several hundred dollars for a handset. A lucrative target that can be attacked all at once. And the BlackBerry is weakest where the iPhone is strongest: web browsing, music, and video.
Compare and contrast with, say, a software platform like Windows Mobile, or a hardware maker like Nokia — their users are spread across a wide variety of phones and platforms. It was far easier to turn the iPhone into something almost every BlackBerry customer might at least consider than it would have been to make a lineup of iPhones that appeal to every Nokia customer.
RIM doesn’t really have any lock-in other than user habits. The BlackBerry gimmick is that it works with the email system your company bought from Microsoft. Replace a BlackBerry with an iPhone (2.0) and the messages, contacts, and calendar events that sync over the network will be the same as the ones on the BlackBerry you just tossed into a desk drawer.
In broad terms, BlackBerrys are optimized first for email; the iPhone for the web. What’s more important, an email client or a web browser? For most people, and perhaps even most current BlackBerry users, the answer is clearly the web.
John – You had my attention at ‘RISK’. The great post won’t make you money tomorrow or even next week, but over time, bazillions are at stake.
1. My son Max is very happy now with my Google buy for him at $490 and $430ish. I also know – because he just pinged me – that I am an ass for not owning Baidu at $250 as well.
You can’t win !
I think the best thing about Google’s numbers, is not the numbers themselves (who the hell really knows what they all mean anyway), BUT, the market’s reaction…
MUTED!
It should be muted. If we were in a bull market, the Nasdaq would be flying on this news and the S&P futures would be blasting. On Google’s numbers tonight, Google is flying and Baidu is flying. It has nothing to do woth semiconductors or housing or inflation or interest rates for the moment.
Google has great margins and have shown tonight that at least so far, oil is not killing them.
The fact that Google has no marketing costs, shipping costs, production costs and packaging costs is why Google can still crank out growth.
They feed brains and help their customers lever knowledge. Not a bad one… two combination and likely why they are the greatest company of all time (to this point).
Tomorrow, Google’s numbers won’t improve the housing outlook or fix the credit crisis, so don’t get tricked into doing more. Focus on the list of stocks I put on the blog this morning and find a few that can thrive in this environment.
Let me know some of your favorite names now that we know the Googster’s numbers.
So while the nerds and mainstream media argue whether Google has peaked, my gold and oil stocks are riiipppppping and the underlying commodities continue at all-time highs.
We have WINflation going on for those just long the basic materials, oil, agriculture and metals, but LoseFlation in last year’s winners like CROX, Google, Apple and just about any growth stock.
Google has no shipping, packaging, manufacturing BUT ALAS, their clients DO.
Rachel asked me to buy her some more Google this morning in the $440’s. Actually, she texted me and I twitterd it. She does not know yet that her stupid day paid $490 something for her a few weeks ago and did not sell at $530.
She must be watching CNBC while getting dressed for school. She obviously sensed a little hysteria.
I hate her for sneaking on to CNBC, but I am proud of my little Tradding Goddess for nailing a little bottom.
Google is not CMGI. I do think it has a $300 handle on it before it starts going up for real, but I don’t trust opinions, just price.
My fave response to my Twitter Question of what moniker to give Rachel is ‘Lindzon 2.0′, from Mathew Ingram .
Other CLEAN suggestions are welcome. She does read the blog and has feelings .
So I have bought some American Express as you know for the kiddies down in the low 40’s.
I also bought some Federal express for them in the low to mid 80’s.
They own IBKR, Nintendo, Chipotles and now have a chance at some Google below $500. I will take that price for them. Luckily only I was dumb enough to buy Starbucks. They don’t need coffee exposure.
If Hannah Montana was public, we would buy her momentum as well.
I am going to add a few more brands into this selloff as it continues, likely Apple and another game stock. At $450 and lower more Google as well.
Nothing for me these days as I am doing less as promised.
The temptation from hundreds of emails sent my way was to buy Apple yesterday at $140. I answered every one that I was a seller, not short, just saying a long hard goodbye to the best stock of my recent lifetime.
It is now down below $130. The company is still phenomenal, but that means nothing to a shareholder base that will slowly evolve from momentum to GARP? or Value?
Not my game. Cash is still my game.
Google is the last great stock to go and it is going today, down close to $50. I am tempted but there is no real reason to get long here. The market has no legs despite being massively oversold. That is what happens into crashes.
Better to pay higher prices with the market on firmer footing.
It is important to separate permabears from actual people on the field of the entrepreneurial web. It is also important to note that if you turn bearish today, which I am starting to lean as I get stopped out of some stocks, it counts more than those that turned bearish at Google’s IPO, Baidu at $100, First Solar at $80 and Apple at $80.
I think Greg is right about this for sure. How it plays out is speculation though:
It is a dire scenario, but one that looks much like what we saw after 2000. That was a much smaller crash without the fuel from broader problems in the US economy, but we still had investment capital shut off for a few years, most startups shut down, and the remaining startups shift business models. We also saw a dramatic rise in pop-up advertising and spyware.
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