Comments on: Bear Stearns: Yahoo Must Form A Social Networking Strategy

By: law compliance here

law compliance here — Sat, 31 May 2008 02:23:30 +0000

law compliance here…

Whatever business your website is in, it needs to be compliant with current law. Along with that, being internet law compliant can save you more than just money. It can keep you out of jail. Take a moment and see if you are breaking the law without eve…

By: Scobleizer agrees with Danah’s confusion over Facebook (which makes me really confused) « Net Circus

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 22:41:10 +0000

[...] during the time I spent enriching my social experience of FB and my knowledge of something that may alter the web portal industry, I have less time for other things that might as satisfying (finishing work earlier, enjoying the [...]

By: Jason Altenburg

Jason Altenburg — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 16:13:54 +0000

If they did have a social site, I’d probably get banned. Just like when I got banned from Yahoo! Answers for being drunk.

By: 5 things for after Bank Holiday Monday « Internet Marketing Professional

5 things for after Bank Holiday Monday « Internet Marketing Professional — Tue, 07 Aug 2007 10:51:06 +0000

[...] Yahoo must get its social media shit together - I dont know about you but this kind of headline in an RSS subscription is pricesles. I dont even care what the content is when I get it I just know that I have to read it. Contains nice little description on Why Yahoo! should be getting into bed with, or buying, FaceBook as part of its Social Media Strategy. [...]

By: Boutique Coquine et Sexy Francophone. Pimentez votre Vie Sexuelle !

Boutique Coquine et Sexy Francophone. Pimentez votre Vie Sexuelle ! — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:36:09 +0000

Boutique Coquine et Sexy Francophone. Pimentez votre Vie Sexuelle !…

Boutique Coquine et Sexy Francophone. Pimentez votre Vie Sexuelle !…

By: Bear Stearns Report on Yahoo’s need for a social networking strategy « Blogospheric

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:18:39 +0000

[...] Stearns Report on Yahoo’s need for a social networking strategy Good overview of “social networking” in general. Some mention of professional sites like Linked [...]

By: DB

DB — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:10:12 +0000

The “older” group, 35 - 54, is the only group with a 20 year age range
If create a “younger” group with a range of 12 - 34 (same % of total internet users as the 35 - 54 group, 38%), the older group is accounts for a lower percentage of users for each of the cited sites other than Friendster (it doesn’t take a genius to guess why)
Finally, I would be very interested to then see how much time the user groups spend engaged in interactions on the respective sites. My guess would be that the younger group probably spends more time on the social networking sites.

By: Alex Ho

Alex Ho — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 18:00:06 +0000

That second chart is flawed, the age groups all have a age range of 7 years while the 35-54 age range has a 19 year range so that group having the biggest percentage is not that surprising considering it has more than double the amount of people in that age group!

By: SW

SW — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 16:20:33 +0000

I really don’t see why anyone in their right mid would buy Facebook at the valuations being banded around, dont you just love Ibanker and their wonderful spreadsheets? yes, Yahoo clearly has the user base and needs to do a much better job of aggregating their current crop of social networking experiences—it would be nice if someone at Yahoo could come up with a strategy instead of simply buying companies and ‘hoping’ things will work out! You have a tough job Jerry, this time round its gonna be tough!

I have seen a few new Social Networking sites just ready to launch Beta which are so revolutionary and special that they have the potential to do exactly what MySpace, Facebook, YouTube have done before—effect change. Everything is cyclical and who’s to say that in 12 months a site such as Capzles.com wont be a Facebook killer? My advice to Yahoo or anyone—don’t buy FB, overvalued, work with what you have—but smarter, or get one of these new and exciting sites just coming out which have killer apps and lever the crap out of your user base.

What do I know though………….

By: share.websitemagazine.com

share.websitemagazine.com — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 13:36:41 +0000

Bear Stearns: Yahoo Must Form A Social Networking Strategy…

There is a bit of buzz around the presentation Bear Stearns Internet analyst Robert Peck gave a couple of days ago….

By: Mick Liubinskas

Mick Liubinskas — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 05:19:09 +0000

It will be interesting to see if Facebook can maintain the ECPM’s as they grow. Google managed to do it despite it being unlikely in the early years. Unless Facebook starts charging or revenue sharing with the applications that want to build on (off) it, then I’m not sure how truly scalable it is at very large numbers.

I agree that Yahoo has lots of these elements, but they are unable to make them work together and there is no ’survival of the fittest’ with the application components. I can see this happening with Facebook. Acquisition will be easy but retention and return will be hard.

Mick de la Tangler

By: Just a random blog !

Just a random blog ! — Mon, 06 Aug 2007 01:48:01 +0000

[...] Or a powerpoint pitch for a new product. Whatever it is, if the people who created it don’t want the world to see it, there’s a good chance it will make a great [...]

By: Orbious Will Make Forwarding Confidential Documents Dangerous | Tekjuice.com

Mon, 06 Aug 2007 00:02:20 +0000

[...] Or a powerpoint pitch for a new product. Whatever it is, if the people who created it don’t want the world to see it, there’s a good chance it will make a great [...]

By: Tangler Blog

Tangler Blog — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 21:44:53 +0000

TGIM for Tangler…

Well, after last weeks downpour of new users, groups and betas it’s noses to grind stones this week for Tangler. We already had lots of great ideas to work on and now we have 100 more. It’s always great to get a big burst of energy into a…

By: Laurent Emolument

Laurent Emolument — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 21:42:01 +0000

Yahoo need to clean out their top management and replace it with people who actually understand the internet in 2007. Re-appointing Jerry Yang as CEO was a mark of desperation.

By: jcricket

jcricket — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 16:54:23 +0000

“…demand a premium valuation due to some “social graph” mumbo-jumbo that has not yet made a dime, and most likely never will…”

Yep, as I said, welcome to 1999 all over again. How many times can you hear “this time is different” before learning that bubbles are all the same!!!

By: adam cassel

adam cassel — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 16:53:58 +0000

I think the report is an excellent example of how analysts and WS/VCs justify valuations/sell valuations. And that’s about it.

One number/data point that to me represents the core driver of the valuation, as has been mentioned above, is that the average demo age is in the 30 - 50 age group or “cohort”.

I dont beleive that at all. I would like to see what the methodology was and the source data for that conclusion/analysis.

Spend any time on facebook looking at profiles, as an example, and it owuld be hard to concuylde that the average user is over 25, now there is no methodology behind my statement, its hearsay at best, but at least I know thgat and state it up front.

I think this 30 - 50 claim will be debunked and is total vapor. I would have to say that Bear is a questionable at BEST source of analysis.

By: Jason McMinn

Jason McMinn — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 13:35:06 +0000

Remember in 1999 when Yahoo! just HAD TO HAVE a “broadband strategy: according the analytsts? Then they overpaid $6.6 billion for Broadcast.com.

By: Raj

Raj — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 07:34:56 +0000

Y! is where great companies go to die. However, I must agree with many that Yahoo probably has the must UNLEVERAGED user base on the internet. If I were a Private Equity company, I would buy Y! instead of facebook (in an LBO, you only really need $3-$5B on hand to do this). You would also require a much lower WACC (17% is quite high in my opinion for this calculation, and has been used to fudge horribly generalized CPM valuation into some kind of decent valuation). Yahoo’s WACC is around 9% today.

Facebook, on the other hand, has the most LEVERAGED user base imaginable - they do not make money, but demand a premium valuation due to some “social graph” mumbo-jumbo that has not yet made a dime, and most likely never will (advertising through friends….that sounds like a great business model). The fact is, yahoo probably has the greatest social reach in the world, but doesn’t realize it (or it does, and is just waiting to fool us all). A facebook IPO? The day that happens is the day AllAdvantage.com and Pets.com come back and IPO. The Facebook IPO will be exactly like the Vonage IPO (or less).

In the analyst’s case, they show Facebook 2007 EBITDA of $122 million? ARE YOU INSANE! They may have REVENUE of $70-$80M a year (mostly from a non-performing Microsoft deal). The rest is from virtual gifts. VIRTUAL GIFTS??? Virtual gifts are a tax on stupidity. And growth? All future advertising dollars will be in the hands of third-party apps - are they going to charge for API calls?

BTW, if I used the same assumptions as our friends at Bear Stearns to value Yahoo (same WACC assumptions, and same CPM), the valuation of Yahoo! comes out to a present value of around $257B. Its trading for $35B - come on people, its a BARGAIN!

Beware of Analysts - they are mostly inbred legacies with no business sense and are generally retarded - Mike, I expect better from you then to post this garbage on your awesome site.

By: JJ

JJ — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 06:53:07 +0000

Looks like the new CFO for facebook is doing a good job, using his contacts at the wall street

By: whoopie

whoopie — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 05:28:03 +0000

the problem is for yahoo is that they are trying to fight a war on too many fronts

for example, do you see google and facebook going into direct competition? not really, i don’t see google promoting orkut in the US at all. google is happy to do algorithms and monetization. facebook is doing pageviews.

yahoo is trying to do both.

it doesn’t matter if everything happening on facebook was done on yahoo three years ago. do you know who uses yahoo 360? nobody. mostly red state forty-somethings taking their pants down for each other. its a shitty demographic. facebook’s demographic - thirtysomething honkeys with college degrees…this is something people want to market to.

i agree facebook, on the surface, is more or less bullshit. but sometimes bullshit, -late to the game bullshit-, will still win out. look at the growth rate in signups on facebook. this thing is not done accelerating let alone levelling out or even stalling.

By: RustyS

RustyS — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 05:06:24 +0000

Even though Yahoo and Facebook would be an ideal cultural fit, Yahoo doesn’t NEED to buy Facebook . . . not at the current web 2.0 bubble price anyway. Let Google or Microsoft (who can afford to take the hit on the ludicrously over-projected advertising revenue they will NOT get out Facebook) be the sucker there. Or just let Facebook go IPO and then laugh when the company with as much hype as the iPhone posts revenues that are a tiny fraction of Yahoo’s.

Yahoo still has arguably the finest portfolio of specialized social and subproperties out there (I wish they’d do more with Jumpcut.) Yahoo just needs to create their own centralized social portal that does a better job of integrating the strengths of all these properties while also allowing open access to other platforms.

By: jim peake

jim peake — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 23:36:17 +0000

Can someone tell me the revenue per thousand visitors with the tollowing sites?

yahoo
face book
myspace
aol
microsoft
flickr
google (i know they are # 1)
etc.

It is not how much you sell it is how much you keep.

Hey, in my view the name of the game is not about fads but about traffic. once you have that traffic you want to refine and segment that traffic and provide RELEVANT content and RELEVANT ads. not sure why Wall St. is so concerned about Yahoo given their traffic numbers and everyone else’s.

Wall street has gotten it wrong before and they are probably getting it wrong now. someone tell them it is about location, location, location….and Yahoo has location, the finest real estate on the net. all they have to do is provide relevant content and advertising. game over…..almost…..not unless msft buys them and then google has someone in their rear view mirror.

– jim peake

http://www.speechrep.com

By: David Mackey

David Mackey — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 23:26:07 +0000

Yahoo acquiring Facebook seems like a good idea, if they can swing it. Facebook almost feels like Yahoo. The interfaces and design methods - mesh, unlike say meshing Yahoo with MySpace. On the other hand, they could also acquire Xanga. A smaller but great social network.

By: viralmythen

viralmythen — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 22:58:45 +0000

Typen digitaler sozialer Netzwerke (Robert Peck)…

Einen interessanten Versuch der Klassifikation (digitaler) sozialer Netzwerke hat Robert Peck, Internetanalyst bei Bear Sterns unternommen. Er unterscheidet vier verschiedene Typen:

Freizeitorientierte Seiten (»leasure-oriented sites«)
Ber…