Is Facebook a Ponzi Scheme?
As a former business consultant, I get questions like this all the time. First off, if they are looking at solid investors for an IPO, it technically cannot be a ponzi scheme. They would have to be using one investor's money to pay off another investor.
When looking at the worth of Facebook, you have to look at the overall value of Facebook as a marketing tool. If you have an ad on Facebook, Facebook links your ad with people that have interests linked on their profile that would align with your product. They are marketing your product directly to a portion of your target audeince.
This can be invaluable to some companies. Take a look at the fact taht Facebook and Twitter have cornered the market on social networking. There is not any major competition out there.
Granted, MySpace and a few others are out there, but they do not hold water to the numbers that Facebook puts out. This hold a great value for investors since they know that they are investing in the superior force in the market. They also know that it would take a pretty long time for another site to come along and come anywhere close to challenging Facebook.It also has to be pointed out that the numbers that are being used also reflect information about Facebook that the general public does not know about.
Investors are going to be privy to future plans of Facebook that the average person is not going to learn for months or years. They are privy to contracts, plans, and updates that the public may never even know about.By figuring out what direction a company is planning on going in, an investor can realize a higher price for the company. The last issue is potentially the most important.
There have been rumors about Facebook moving into the streaming video market and having a subsite that could rivel Hulu. There are other rumors that have been whispered about Facebook getting into the coupon market, or even the first run movie market for indy films. If Facebook is actually looking at any of these potential areas, it can drive the potential value of the company up, thus driving up the current value of the company.
No. This is what a Ponzi Scheme is: "A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to separate investors, not from any actual profit earned by the organization, but from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors. " This has no bearing or similarity to Facebook.
Facebook is a service that is free to its consumers but earns money through selling advertising and perhaps data about those consumers. It is hard to judge the value of the company but they have more than 500,000,000 customers, many of whom use them a great deal. I would guesstimate $50 billion is actually very conservative because the nature of the service makes it a voluntary monopoly, rather like the way almost everyone uses Windows because it's easier to learn a single operating system.So, eventually either everyone will be their customer or else they will be broken up somehow behind the scenes like the telephone companies - in which case current investors would get parts of each Baby-Facebook.
That probably won't happen though as long as the service is free to end users.
No. It's more of mass delusion (history is rife with them). Founded on\driven by the novelty of direct ego inflation.
If by ponzi you mean scam? No.
No. $ / \ $ $ / \ / \ $ $ $ $ / \ / \ / \ / \ $ $$ $$$ $ Charles Ponzi was an infamous Italian con man. He is considered one of the greatest American swindlers.
S aliases include Charles Ponei, Charles P. Bianchi, Carl and Carlo. S scam involved profitable early investors returns from the investments of later investors.So, if you started at the top of the pyramid then got lots of dough from the later people at the bottom.
Facebook is free to sign up. Yes, they do have affiliated marketing and app opportunities to make a profit but the 50 billion + worth is due to the 500 million active users. A marketing companies dream.
Plus, the site has specific demographic information that can be used to target advertising. Any company would love to get their hand on the demographic data but turning those users into dollars is a lot harder then getting rich people to invest in a Ponzi scheme.
I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.