Social Media Bubble Pops Before It Fully Inflates 200
bdking writes "Groupon's IPO plans are melting down. Facebook has pushed back its IPO to next September. And now Zynga reports a 95% reduction in sequential quarterly profits. So much for the social media IPO bubble."
At least everyone is getting let down before a lot of people lose a lot of money this time around.
Too bad (Score:2)
Zynga? (Score:3)
People are have gotten tired of those stupid games.
Facebook is making money and a lot of it.
Groupon. I used it once of movie tickets. People can only go out to eat and got to the spa so many times.
I don't think it is too much of a bubble. Much like the first time around the good will survive the stupid will die off.
Of course you should come to my new social media site. It is for people that are in deep emotional relationships or want to seek relationships with one eyed Episcopalian kangaroos. I am pretty sure it will be the next big thing.
Fetish courtesy of Neal Simon's Goodbye Girl.
Re:Zynga? (Score:4, Interesting)
Two problems with Groupon that I've seen after briefly subscribing to it:
1. It's convoluted to see deals without subscribing. I imagine there are people out there who would be interested, but don't want to give out personal information.
2. Who can blame them? Most of the deals sucked in my area. This is one place where targeted advertising would be great--I specifically signed up to receive ads! Instead, I got an ad for pole dancing. As a male, I was not very intrigued.
Re:Zynga? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Zynga? GroupOn Embarrassed (Score:2)
The main problem with Groupon is the "deals" suck so badly for businesses that once they've burned through all good will in a region the only way to keep generating revenue is to expand into another.
I would actually be embarrassed to use a GroupOn coupon, knowing how much it was shafting the business in the process. They get what -- 25% -- of their normal price, while GroupOn keeps another 25% for themselves in the half-off price? I truly feel sorry for the businesses who have been convinced to go this route.
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I imagine there are people out there who would be interested, but don't want to give out personal information. [...] This is one place where targeted advertising would be great--I specifically signed up to receive ads! Instead, I got an ad for pole dancing. As a male, I was not very intrigued.
So you don't tell the system that you're male (personal information) and then you're annoyed because you see ads that don't make sense to you?
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Actually, I did give them personal information. Signed up and everything. I should have made that more obvious.
Re:Zynga? (Score:4, Funny)
Look, I'm all for pole dancing just not the type that has me dancing.
I think we're all in agreement on this one.
Too much generalization (Score:5, Insightful)
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We may end up seeing something similar to what happened with search engines- successive stages of different companies until someone got the product well enough to dominate the market (a long with a healthy dose of early mover effect compared to new rivals).
I'm hoping we'll make some progress. We should get a "social media" that is made by, for and of the people (to borrow from something that may not actually deserve that description). Powered by something like diaspora* [joindiaspora.com] and the freedombox. [freedomboxfoundation.org]
ps. Check out the new .sig if you have an opinion on women.
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Sorry. I feel the need to clarify. The ps. was completely off topic and was not just directed at the parent but at anyone in general.
Anti-Social Networking (Score:3, Interesting)
Overly dramatic headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Better would be "Predicted social media bubble fails to materialize". A bubble is defined by its inflation; a bubble that "pops" before it "inflates" never existed in the first place.
Re:Overly dramatic headline (Score:5, Insightful)
I would argue though that Goldman Sachs creating an investment tool that trades in Facebook pre-IPO shares, and having that investment tool value FB at around $50 billion is a pretty damn strong sign of an actual bubble.
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Re:Overly dramatic headline (Score:5, Informative)
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Aha! But the question is, are bubbles created fully formed or inflated to shape? And if the latter, can they "pop" while in the process of inflating?
The headline says, "before it fully inflates," implying that a bubble was formed, then while in the process of filling up, it popped before reaching it's full capacity.
Years of experience blowing soap bubbles confirms that the analogy is apt.
dZ.
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Better would be "Predicted social media bubble fails to materialize". A bubble is defined by its inflation; a bubble that "pops" before it "inflates" never existed in the first place.
Not really, the bubble is partially inflated with everyone expecting massive sales at the companies IPO. Speculators are gambling on this, however the profit downgrades has shown that the massive initial share prices will not be seen. Zynga, Facebook et al. should have had their IPO two years ago at their height, now days everyone I know who played Farmville and Mafia Wars has gone back to their regular lives.
If I were Zynga's CEO, I would have had the IPO in 2008, taken a lot of money from stupid people
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As long as you are playing semantics, how can a bubble pop if it wasn't already partially inflated?
Zynga's profit is down 95%?? (Score:4, Insightful)
Damn. I thought that Zynga's bubble was going to pop, but not this soon. There are only so many Farmville type games anyone can play, and I can't be arsed to build my life around clicking some field every 4 hours without getting paid.
Yes, this is just a year-over-year quarter comparison, and there are a few things that were playing against Zynga in the last few quarters. Not the least of all that a lot of real game companies are getting into the FB game business. Zynga won't be able to just rip-off some game mechanics and then throw some eye candy on top of it. They'll actually have to develop real games.
Welcome to the real world, Zynga. No one except your founders is going to make bank on your stock.
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Also remember that profits in the tech industry are incredibly variable. You can spend a lot of money on R&D or marketing in one quarter, or have a surge of interest in your new product followed by a rapid dropoff.
It's hard to evaluate this without looking at their full balance sheet.
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profit2011 = profit2010 / 20
profit2010 - profit2011 = 0.3
profit2010 - ( profit2010 / 20 ) = 0.3
profit2010*(20-1) / 20 = 0.3
profit2010 = 0.3*20 / 19 = 0.31579 = 31.6%
So their profit margin in 2010 was 31.6% of gross revenue. Facebook is demanding 30% of their gross revenue this year, which leaves them with a profit margin of just
Not surprised in the least. (Score:5, Insightful)
I must be jaded.
I must have been around a bit.
I must be a thinking human.
It surprises me in the least.
The barriers to entry in these fields are so low I can't figure these absurd valuations of social media - people on the internet are not just fickle, they're extreme fickle - since there's nothing really to hold them anywhere, not much of a stake.
Now eBay, they're still successful no matter how badly they handle their business, because everyone goes there because everyone is there and no other auction sites have really stuck around to compete with them. But social, who's really nailing their cart to any Social Media horse? Google+ pops up and everyone creates an account, just in case everyone else goes there.
We knew this phenomena back in the days of Fido BBSes (and even before that with message systems on college mainframes in the 1970's.)
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The barriers to entry in these fields are so low I can't figure these absurd valuations of social media - people on the internet are not just fickle, they're extreme fickle - since there's nothing really to hold them anywhere, not much of a stake.
You don't understand the true value of the Information that can be harvested out of a site like Facebook who requires (to the extent possible) the use of your proper IRL information. A big pile of that is worth a lot!
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BBSes, Newsgroups, IRC, AOL Instant Message lists, ICQ, eGroups, Yahoo! groups, LiveJournal, Myspace, Facebook, Google+. You may have started on FB but you were at least 15 years late to the social party, Mr. AC. I'm sick and tired of you dumbass kids thinking Facebook is somehow the first global network oriented around social interaction. Also, get off my lawn.
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If you think a chat network isn't a social network, you really need to go back to school and re-learn English. Chatting and talking is the BASIS of a social ANYTHING.
Zynga Games (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah man, I tell ya what, man, that dang ol’ Zynga, man, you just go in on there and point and click, talk about w-w-dot-w-com, mean you got the chicks on there, man, just go click, click, click, click, click, it’s dang ol' easy, man.
And here I am with all this money to invest! (Score:2)
I wonder if online pet food stores are coming back.
Jokes? (Score:2)
Lets get ahead of the curve. Last tech bubble resulted in all kinds of jokes. This tech bubble is going to result in jokes about... Or will it be more complaining, like this bubble will be nothing but whining about how facebook sucks, etc?
Money burned elsewhere (Score:4, Interesting)
The money for the last New Economy bubble was created to counter measure a previous bubble collapse. The fed reduced the interest rates to pump more dollars into the market. That worked perfectly. And the money had to go somewhere. And that somewhere was the New Economy. This time they burned the money in that finance crisis and housing thing. And reduced the interest rates again. However, this time the economy is in such a bad shape due to the financial crisis and the money problems in the Euro-zone and of course the trouble with the US budget keep the banks from "investing" so IPO for the web 2.0 companies is not such a good idea at the moment.
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Why would the banks worry about US budget?
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They own many government bonds and even more they borrowed money to buy them. The US might not be able to pay back their debt as the current economic crisis slows the US growth down which reduces tax income. The stimulus of the US market with cheap money does no longer work. So the US government tries to do a little Keynes. This increases the debt and will not help to reduce it. The alternative is not to invest in the US economy which will reduce growth figures even more. This will decrease tax income and t
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why lend to unreliable businesses when you can borrow at 0% from the fed, buy treasuries at 2-3% and earn risk free money?
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Probably because 2-3% is a pretty poor rate of return compared to investments in businesses.
They can also borrow more, if their assets aren't as risky.
Woohoo! (Score:2)
Yes! Finally! Hopefully all this social media crap will die off soon. And my later prediction was correct, Groupon was the first to go.
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No news here, Slashdot... (Score:2)
Unremarkable:
1) GroupOn is crap, was going to fail away.
2) We're at the start of a "double-dip" recession or worse; everyone at the Fed is screaming about "no investment;" interest rates have been lowered etc but experts say this will move only a few investors, in highly secure investments... ie, "what Bubble???", no one's taking high-risk investments.
I guess now that Taco's gone, article quality is going even *further* downhill.
Oh, money was lost... (Score:2)
But this time, it was the VC's, private equity, and angels who are holding the declining valuations, not the post-IPO institutional and retail investors.
About time they stop tossing hot potatoes to us -- they finally got burned!
Flailing at the Wind (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook is - or soon will be - flailing at the wind. Fighting an opponent they can't hurt.
Facebook is now facing a competitor that can afford to earn $ 0 from social media.
Facebook's survival depends on the popularity and eyeball count of Facebook to sell ads and revenue share (Zynga) agreements against.
Google, currently earning as much profit per month as Facebook earns per year, does not need Google+ to earn three cents in order to continue flourishing. While they would LIKE Google+ to be a runaway hit, it simply isn't necessary.
Once Google starts aggressively advertising Google+ on television, stealing 10, 20, maybe 30% of Facebooks' traffic, how will Zuckerburg feel then? Probably like the guys at Netscape after Microsoft purchased Mosaic, rebranded it as Internet Explorer and started giving it away for free.
Facebook's UI is a mess, it's privacy and security settings are not intuitive and the entire user experience feels stale and worn-out to many people I've talked with. The massive redesign that Facebook is preparing to launch, with Timeline and other UI tweaks.. while satisfying some, will probably feel like "work" to many - something new to learn, for what was supposed to be a simple, fun way to keep in touch with friends.
If Google has half a brain, they will ascertain the date of Facebooks' relaunch and start a massive national ad buy for Google+ starting two days prior and run a solid week after. Clean, simple, secure microblogging with video and photo photo sharing. They will steal millions of users.
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edit: revenue per month, not profit. However, this Jan. 5 2011 article suggests Facebooks' profits scale similarly to Google's. By which measure, Facebook is still a tenth or twelfth as valuable and 100% dependent on the success of their one property.
http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-details-leaked-company-is-much-more-profitable-than-everyone-thought-2011-1 [businessinsider.com]
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Google has been trying to do this for how many years now?
The value in Facebook to users is ability to communicate with all their friends. How many of their friends are on Google+?
Whilst I think Graph API means G+ could be a better FB than FB, FB can probably block G+ from it.
This would be newsworthy (Score:2)
Except that their revenues are actually UP. They bought a lot of stuff and hired a lot of people. Profit money taken in, it's money AFTER you paid for everything they are doing. So, as of now, they are quite sustainable [businessinsider.com].
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Grr, that should read "Profit != money taken in" -Slashdot apparently filters the does-not-equal character.
Virtual Land Rush (Score:2)
A Good Thing? (Score:2)
At least maybe Mark Zuckerberg won't be such an arrogant asshat a year from now.
Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of guys (Score:2)
This is what they deserve. They took their chances.
Should have sold earlier (Score:2)
I find it hard to believe owners believe that they own a rock solid idea or product rather than the latest fad. It must just be greed that keeps them from selling when there company reaches say 50 - 100 mil per person (they certainly don’t need any more).
As do most here I don't believe these companies are worth much more than 2 to 5 times their yearly profits as with risk added your aren’t likely to see much more back and that curve that looks exponential is just nearing the peak (as the sum of
People I already know (Score:2)
One of the problems with Facebook is that most of your friends are people you already know and in many cases, people you haven't seen in years. There is a huge void which is trying to meet new people.
The other problem is the youth. I was a teen in the late '80s and if my parents knew what I was really doing when I was 15-18 they would have thrown me out of the house. Teens today want no part of a social network of parents, aunts, uncles and good grief, Grandparents!?
comparing apples and oranges (Score:2)
Groupon is an easily copied and implemented concept. Being first or largest doesnt help a whole lot. My local newspaper does a groupon-type promotion daily.
No lost money? (Score:2)
Tell that to Rupert Murdoch.
90% - really? (Score:4, Informative)
For the six months ended June 30, 2010 and 2011, our revenue increased from $231.0 million to $522.0 million, our bookings increased from $373.0 million to $561.3 million, our net income decreased from $20.4 million to $18.1 million and our adjusted EBITDA decreased from $187.3 million to $177.3 million.
It looks like net income dropped 10% (to 90% of what it was), and EBITDA dropped by about 5%.
How that translates to a 90% loss in profits I'm not quite sure... Seems like it's a drop TO 90% of what it's profits were - a 10% reduction, not a 90% reduction.
Facebook is in decline (Score:3)
It was fresh at one point, but for me the charm wore off when I realized it was essentially a much better version of software the IC and military uses to create a pattern of life for high value objectives, so I quit last year. Not that I think my profile is gone, mind you.
For the somnambulant masses, it has simply gotten boring. A chore. How many times at parties do I hear people say "why didn't you reply to this PM", "check Facebook to find such and such directions to a party," "oh god I am so behind on Facebook", ect.
How one can fall behind with respect to Facebook remains a mystery to me, but apparently it can happen.
Re:Silly reporting (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Silly reporting (Score:4, Interesting)
Regarding Zynga, how about doing as suggested and read the details? (I won't comment on Groupon, as I've never believed in their product at all)
Their quarterly revenue actually went up by more than $30M over the previous quarter; $279M vs $242M. They didn't launch a new game the entire year, until May 31st. (one month before the end of Q2) Since then, they have also launched a new Indiana Jones themed game, Adventure World. Keep in mind that Zynga will be one of the early players on Google's new social network, already launching their biggest game, Cityville, on the platform.
They had higher than normal hiring expenses, including a $10M payment as part of an executive's sign-on bonus. They also paid out $10.6M in a stock warrant. Both of these are quite likely to be one time events, and neither of them made many appearances in the media. If you take those two payments out, you are back at ~$22M in profit, which would be an increase in year over year, and almost double Q1 2011's profit of $11.8M. My source [businessinsider.com] outlines most of this for you, in case you'd rather not read through the details yourself. I knew the Q2 2011 profit number, but here is another source [gamezebo.com] for you to check out in case you don't believe me.
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My mistake.. the last sentence should be "... Q1 2011 profit number ..." instead of "... Q2 2011 profit number ..." -- sorry.
bonuses are not a one-time event (Score:2)
there is the 'future earnings booked to present' bonus
there is the executive who leaves to start a hedge fund golden parachute
there is his right hand man who leaves with him golden parachute
there is the bonus payed to the executive committee that looks for a new executive to fill his spot
there is a hiring bonus for this new guy
then some more golden parachutes and hush money when a couple people leave because they find him snorting coke in the boardroom
then there are the bonuses for performance increases
then
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Zynga's revenues increased massively, but their profits shrunk because they invested so much into growth. That's what they're hoping people will believe, I think, because they want to look like they have some growth left, so they can get rich off an IPO and (presumably) abandon ship.
In reality, their revenue is propped up by amortized income from past quarters [businessinsider.com]. If you look more closely at the numbers, as in the article I linked, it looks much worse: although revenue is up, bookings are down, and bookings
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This. There's no real "social" aspect to Groupon's core business. It's a company that sells discount gift certificates, that's all there is to it.
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Doesn't it have a feature where if you buy something and then get some number of friends to buy it you get it for free? I know thats not Facebook like but it does sound pretty social to me. It is certainly exploiting real world relationships for online marketing which is really all the social web was ever about.
Social media = relationships between users (Score:3, Informative)
The definition of "social media" varies but generally speaking the word implies online service that is centered around the social relations between the users. Social media builds on who you're interested in, not on what you're interested in. It's based more on the amount of communication as opposed to the content of communication.
For example, Slashdot isn't social media because I come here for the content (articles and the information and opinions found in comments section). Facebook is social media becau
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Doesn't it have a feature where if you buy something and then get some number of friends to buy it you get it for free?
Another spin on multi-level marketing, AKA a form of ponzi scheme...
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Doesn't it have a feature where if you buy something and then get some number of friends to buy it you get it for free?
Another spin on multi-level marketing, AKA a form of ponzi scheme...
Actually just a general pyramid scheme. Ponzi schemes may be famous right now, but not all investment frauds are ponzi schemes.
In a pyramid scheme, each new investor has to get new investors for himself to create value to his own investment. A club that costs $30 to join where each member gets $10 for each person they invite is a pyramid scheme.
In a ponzi scheme each new investor adds value to all the previous investors; consequently, fewer investors are needed. That's one reason ponzi schemes are so muc
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But yeah, it's a huge stretch to call it a social media site. I think people are just looking for a way to describe this new-ish dot com bubble without calling it that. "Social" is just a me-too labe
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Old Navy has that feature, and "it is certainly exploiting real world relationships".
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The "social" aspect is that a certain number of people have to sign up for a deal before the deal becomes active. If a preset limit isn't met, nobody gets the deal. People tend to use social networks such as Facebook to spread the deals and encourage other people to sign up. So Groupon is kind of an adjunct to social networking sites like Facebook in the same sense as Zynga is (Zynga only exists because of Facebook).
True... but the tipping point on Groupon is so low (Score:3)
Typically the deal has tipped before I even open my email in the morning. It's in no-one's best interests to have the tipping point very high - Groupon doesn't want a deal to fail, they get no cash!
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Groupon just doesn't work for me. I live 40 minutes east of Atlanta(which has a very spread out metro area).
90% of their deals are for crap I would never buy(nails, massage, spa, etc.). Occasionally they have a 1/2 price meal deal, but they are all 40-60 miles away. Am I going to drive for 2 hours to save $15-$20 on a meal? Would you?
Maybe it works better for those living in more urban areas.
It's a pretty good idea, but $1 billion IPO. I'm not buying that bubble.
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It's really tough to make a case when you don't have a set of three.
OK, then: The ongoing meltdown of MySpace, which was bought by News Corp in 2005 for $580 million, and was sold in 2011 for $35 million.
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Uh.. the whole economy crashing thing was years ago now. I doubt this is related. It does sound more like people just finally got bored and moved on to something else. I'm not sure what, but I'm glad there won't be so many of those stupid predictions about how gaming inside your web browser is "teh futurez!". It has its place, but that place isn't replacing consoles any more than the Wii's motion controls got rid of game pads.
There's a big difference between "infinitescimal growth" and "95% decrease" btw.
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Uh.. the whole economy crashing thing was years ago now.
Uh, haven't you read the papers lately? Crashing repeatedly is apparently all it's capable of these days.
"Recession coming again."
"Really? I didn't even get to see the last one end. @#$"
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Yeah.. I haven't actually noticed any change at all in my own life.. though I don't make much use of credit, and the only debt I'm in right now is my student loan, so I guess I'm not in a position for it to affect me much.
I think a lot of the whining is just a self fulfilling prophecy though. How do you expect to "increase consumer confidence" when you do nothing but spout doom and gloom all over the place? Sensationalist media really don't help when it comes to this kind of situation.
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No kidding...all this sensationalist stuff will be the end of us all.
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PS no, I never read the papers, nor do I watch TV or listen to the radio. I used to just never read any news ever (I really don't want to think about rape and murder every single day of my life), but I found that Slashdot often has stuff that interests me.
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Why're you saying that like it's a thing of the past? If anything deserved the continuous aspect ever, this is it.
Re:given the state of the economy, (Score:5, Insightful)
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Nothing real about Groupon or Zynga has changed that caused their value to decrease 90%; those sorts of swings are entirely driven by the worst type of speculation.
I doubt that speculation reduced Zynga's profits by 95%. Either their costs have soared for some reason, their revenues plummeted or their books were just plain wrong. Or a bit of two or more of those.
Re:given the state of the economy, (Score:5, Informative)
From what I've read, Zynga's revenues rose 115%, but profits dropped 90%+.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/entertainmentnewsbuzz/2011/09/zyngas-90-drop-in-second-quarter-profits-unlikely-to-derail-ipo.html [latimes.com]
According to that article, their costs went up a ton due to development of two new games that have yet to make them money. I have a hard time swallowing the article's claim that a 90% drop in profits isn't something to be alarmed about.
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According to that article, their costs went up a ton due to development of two new games that have yet to make them money. I have a hard time swallowing the article's claim that a 90% drop in profits isn't something to be alarmed about.
Sad but true. Short-sighted investors that are alarmed when executives put profits back into the company instead of dolling them out as dividends are what make so many CEOs drive perfectly good companies into the ground. They should all have their man-cards revoked and sent to business school.
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Short-sighted investors
There is another angle though. Wall Street writes its own news, and they sound alarms intentionally. They then bank on the recovery to every involuntary reaction by the market. Just another way the real players cheat to make big money. Most day traders and independent financial advisers and everyone that takes cable news seriously are all being played. You have to be in the club to make money. They may be watching the same news, but I guarantee they hear it differently.
And they don't care who knows about an
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Nothing real about Groupon or Zynga has changed that caused their value to decrease 90%; those sorts of swings are entirely driven by the worst type of speculation.
I doubt that speculation reduced Zynga's profits by 95%. Either their costs have soared for some reason, their revenues plummeted or their books were just plain wrong. Or a bit of two or more of those.
I think early speculation on a Google buy out of Groupon propelled their valuation to irrational heights. Reality has been reasserting itself, in a way very reminiscent of Terry Pratchett's Mort, upon Groupon. I thought they had a marginal idea, at best, when I first hear their business model, but I'm just a nobody who said people should be buying Ford stock with every dollar they can lay their hands on, when it was at 89 cents a share in early 2009 (even at today's price of ~$10 a share that's a pretty ni
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Yeah, I was just a nobody then too. I, however, was recommending GM back in 2008. Luckily no one trusted me to give financial information, including my wife.
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Or how about Zynga's founder Mark Pincus' own admission [techcrunch.com] that he scammed the players to make money.
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And where's the difference to the recession? It's not really a recession, it's just people waking up and noticing that the toilet papers traded at Wall Street ain't worth remotely what they thought they were.
If anything, we had an artificial market inflation before.
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Not sure if you are trolling or what, by Zynga is a huge gaming company mostly propped up by facebook. Some sources say that they are bigger than EA [businessweek.com].
Well i guess not anymore :P
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To be fair, I haven't heard about them either.
Then again, I'm not paying money for games I can have on any flashgame page for free...
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They make facebook "games".
I.e. Farmville.
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I think of them more as slot machines for the internet age.
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They also make a bunch of iPhone game apps. They have a few word games I play on occasion.
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Not just Facebook. I have been using Words with Friends (Scrabble clone) on my iPhone and it's worked well.. Free. They nag to upgrade to the paid version once in a while, but I don't notice the ads in the free version.
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Investors have become educated?
If only that were true. History shows that investors can't wait to participate in the next bubble.
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Temper temper, mon capitain.
Re:Dear Zynga (Score:4, Funny)
If I ever see a former Zynga coder or QA person come through my door looking for a job I WILL have you thrown off the premises bodily.
Are you prepared to do that yourself? Most McDonald's locations don't have security personnel on-site.
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Zynga doesn't produce games. Did not not pay attention to what one of the big Zynga guys said? Copy, Copy, Copy, until it makes you money.
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Marketers for some reason [think] the more obnoxious your ads are, the more people see them.
Why's that at all surprising? It's true.
I've sworn off buying stuff because of egregiously offensive ads many times. Slapping me in the face repeatedly with boneheaded marketroid pitches just makes me look harder for stuff I don't want and will never buy. I was just telling a friend last night why I'd never buy an HP laptop again, and why I won't buy Intel based boxes, and why I've not been inside a McDonalds in more than a decade. Their ads remind me repeatedly of all the things I hate about them!
Marke
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