$100,000,000,000. A one followed by 11 zeroes. Has social networking truly become so lucrative that Facebook’s intention of launching their initial public offering on May 17th will yield a company that can raise $10 billion against such a lofty valuation? It’s a question that was being asked when Facebook was worth 1/3rd of where it is now. The question will be asked until it fails or clearly succeeds. What do you think? Is Facebook really worth that much?…

In less than a month, Groupon’s highly-lauded stocks have plummeted from their IPO sale price of $28 closing today at $15.24, down 46% since their November 4th initial public offering. That’s the good news. The bad news is that recovery, if any, will be short-lived. We anticipated bad times, declaring that Groupon was not IPO-ready, but it appears that things are worse than we thought. Since going public, Groupon has done very little to enhance or promote their product the way that a newly-public company normally would. Their “big launch” this month of an “exciting new feature” is, for the most…

2010 was a good year for the economy in terms of the number of initial public offerings (IPO). 2011 is trending to be slower overall with 76 as of October 25th versus 152 in 2010. It was still a strong year compared to the start of the recession in 2008 and 2009 when there were 78 combined for both years. There were losers in this year’s crop, but those who found success did so in a big way. LinkedIn, HomeAway, and Spirit Airlines are all showing good numbers compared to their launch price. Most, however, are still underwater. There were enough filings this year in preparation for 2012 to fill a bathtub….

Shares of online real estate service Zillow more than doubled in their initial public offering on Wednesday, following the same path as other prominent Internet companies that have recently gone public. Zillow priced its offering at $20 per share on Tuesday night, but demand pushed shares up to $57 upon opening on Wednesday. Shares briefly soared above $60 before settling back to around $38 per share in midday trading. Zillow’s initial public offering follows filings by a slew high-profile Internet companies such as Groupon, LinkedIn, and Zynga. Some of these companies have continued to…

The social network has its fingers in a majority of websites in one way or another. Businesses promote their Facebook pages on the homepage of their websites. Blogs, bloggers, journalists, and mainstream publications often have several different Facebook widgets littered everywhere on every page. In less than a month, Facebook will have over 700 million users. It sounds like a safe bet. In reality, it’s guaranteed to be an utter failure in the not-so-long run based upon a combination of history, reality, and mathematics. The Platform The biggest challenge that innovative service sites such…

There is an opportunity to learn from our mistakes before they can do real damage. That opportunity is Groupon, and the opportunity presents itself in the form of an upcoming IPO that needs to fail for the sake of the rest of the internet. Sounds weird, I know, but hear me out. The GrouPonzi Scheme When Groupon was able to raise a billion dollars in funding, many (including me) applauded it as a sign of a company that was doing the right things with their money and demonstrating responsibility. Granted, it was based upon an assumption that the investors looked at the books and found them to be sound. Why…