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Six years on, they really haven't monetized the site. Its advertising system is seriously ineffective and they've dropped the ball in corporate-consumer intera
by tewks 18y ago
Six years on, they really haven't monetized the site. Its advertising system is seriously ineffective and they've dropped the ball in corporate-consumer interaction to Twitter. Beacon was a disaster.
People like Marc Andreesen claim that they could be profitable in a second. If this is true, why would the company be trying to raise more VC and dilute everyone's holdings?
http://www.techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/twitter-march.png http://www.techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/twitter...
There is definitely value that's being squandered as time goes on. Putting the lipstick on the pig and dumping it before time runs out might not be such a bad idea as they seem to think.
Yahoo was willing to pay at least 1.5-1.6 billion two years ago. If they are really burning through $20 million/month, they've not gained very much by waiting.
- knightinblue 18y agoEver see the movie 'August'? The best line - We're running on fumes
- gojomo 18y agoYahoo was willing to pay at least 1.5-1.6 billion two years ago. If they are really burning through $20 million/month, they've not gained very much by waiting. Compared to almost any other investment over the past two years, a gain of 25-30% is a lot.
- potatolicious 18y agoYour valuation is only worth something if you can cash out to that amount. Just because somebody says you're worth $2B, doesn't mean you can necessarily arrange a clean exit in that ballpark.
- webwright 18y agoI think it's pretty clear that they are aiming for IPO, not acquisition.
- jonknee 18y agoBut they have taken in more capital in the two years which means they would have been better off selling. They have taken $475m in VC since then, vastly diluting their internal holdings. They have taken all this cash and are no more valuable but many of the share holders are invested at a higher valuation which means they are unwilling to sell.
- gojomo 18y agoThey took in a lot of that at a much higher valuation -- $15 billion. So even at a $2 billion pre-money valuation, at par they're ahead of where they'd be if they'd sold for $1.6 billion two years ago. And that despite a ~40% haircut to all kinds of assets in the meantime. (Since the rumored YHOO $1.6B offer: GOOG -21%, MSFT -35%, YHOO -45% -- while Facebook is +15% or more, even with the dilution.) Sure, they'd prefer $4B or $6B, but anyone who portrays a $2B term sheet now as creating regret they didn't combine with Yahoo (ha!) is missing the larger context.
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- soundsop 18y agoPeople like Marc Andreesen claim that they could be profitable in a second. If this is true, why would the company be trying to raise more VC and dilute everyone's holdings? Because they're concentrating on continued growth of their user base. But there's probably a valuation threshold that's well above $2 billion where they'd rather to go into revenue mode rather than take the money.
- electromagnetic 18y agoTheir growth of their user base, IMO, is seriously degrading the service though. I get repeated login failures through timeouts and whenever this happens I'm lucky if I'll even get on Facebook, now I usually check my messages through my email because it's faster to start Thunderbird than to try logging into Facebook. This then means facebook makes less money off of me.
- jyu 18y agoWhere is this $20 million/month figure cited from?
- pclark 18y ago$400M of revenues isn't enough?!