The bubble Facebook.com

This text is an article published by Time magazine and can be read in pdf here

Facebook has just passed the beautiful figure of 500 million users, I dare say people but would be the third most populous country, only behind China and India and more than ten times the population of Spain. With these data it seems that is thinking about an upcoming IPO with a value close to U.S. $ 33,700 million (26,589 million euros), according to the transactions carried out in secondary markets. This would put the popular social network with a market value above the sector established companies listed on Wall Street.

Looking at these figures, my mind moves to the years 1997-2001, where there was a strong speculative stream in which the stock of the Western nations saw a rapid increase in value due to the advancement of companies linked to the new sector ea Internet the New Economy. A period marked by the founding (and in many cases, spectacular failure) of a new group of Internet-based companies commonly referred to as companies pontocom. The combination of a fast rising stock prices, individual speculation and widely available venture capital created an exuberant environment. Are we at the dawn of the second bubble?

In 1999 and start of 2000 - in full bubble - the evaluation via multiple (based on valuing the company should behave similarly to the average of companies in the sector) was widely used. If you had an idea about the Internet business, its value was the average of the sector, although there was only a company like yours in the world. His project had not been born and already had a good rating.

In the top 100 most valuable brands, six of the top ten brands belong to the TIME (Internet and new technologies). Number one - Google - is maintained for the fourth consecutive year - 144,260 million (87.757 million euros) - Three technology follow: IBM, Apple and Microsoft, leaving behind great icons of consumption as Coca-Cola (5 ª) or McDonald's (6 º). Recently confirmed the sale of Burger King to the venture capital firm 3G Capital to 3,100 million euros. Burger King, the world's second largest fast food, was founded more than 50 years, has more than 11,000 restaurants 67 countries and 300,000 employees worldwide. Facebook is still very young and should show that you know how to convert euros visits. Otherwise you can not help you at any time to re-puncture the bubble of Web 2.0.

Tags: internet bubble , coca cola , facebook , Google , mc donalds , time sector , Web 2.0