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What does facebook's valuation mean?






 Article Complements of Soshable


Valuations come and go. The move up and fall down. In the whole scheme of things, they only count for now and can turn on a dime (no pun intended).  When Goldman Sachs participates in a large investment in Facebook, it means something.
What that meaning is, we really don’t know. Nobody does. Yet.
If it’s successful, if Facebook is able to turn a sizable investment into real ROI for the investors, than it means all of this ranting that “social media is the ‘now’ and the ‘future’, damn it” will be real. Those of us embedded in it know. Those with the money haven’t been as forthcoming.
If it fails, if Facebook makes a big mistake and fails to continue to be as profitable as they theoretically currently are, then it may be the last major investment for a long time from “the Street” into social media.
One thing is certain – Facebook will spend the money. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has never been scared of spending other people’s money and Facebook is poised to do some great things with this latest batch. Early shareholders will likely be able to finally cash out at least a little bit. Talent across Silicon Valley will want to dust off their LinkedIn profiles, because Facebook will be looking. Innovations and improvements will be accelerated. The sky’s the limit.
For others in the industry such as Twitter and LinkedIn, it helps and hurts them. Obviously, pain comes whenever a competitor, direct or indirect, is given resources to compete better. The good comes in the idea that the money is out there (as it’s always been) and the purse strings are opening (as it has been very recently).
Will users notice? Probably not. This is investor news only. It does bring up speculation about the value of an IPO, rumored possible in 2012 as the board wonders how much bigger they can get.
At 600,000,000 users, again, the sky’s the limit.

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