Meanwhile over at Facebook Mark Zuckerberg and company, who have told the world on CBS’ 60 Minutes that there’s no IPO coming (this year), must be considering their options — literally and figuratively.
I had always thought that Microsoft would eventually buy Facebook. But Yahoo! complicates that. It’s very unlikely that after buying and trying to assimilate Yahoo! that Microsoft will turn around and buy Facebook for several reasons.
Does that then all but guarantee an IPO for the company in 2009? It may well.
But an IPO for Facebook is itself complicated by Google’s Q4 acknowledgment that social networks (read: MySpace) weren’t generating as much revenue as the company had hoped. That revelation and other emerging information about these sites suggests they aren’t going to be the boon to advertisers that everyone had hoped, though the jury’s still out somewhat.
So while there will certainly be an appetite for a Facebook IPO, it may not be quite as appealing to investors as it might have been originally.
Screenwerk 
February 8, 2008 at 3:13 pm
Social networking will continue to attract an audience and investment but it won’t in the foreseeable future produce anywhere near the revenues and profits search does.
February 8, 2008 at 4:14 pm
Right. Agree.