Facebook’s valuation more than tripled in just three years.
Twitter sees frantic growth despite a comparetively ’slow› adoption (it took me 4 attempts to properly understand Twitter).
WordPress.com blogs garnered 23 billion pageviews in 2010, an increase of 53% from 2009.
Groupon turned down Google’s offer to buy it for $6 billion in December 2010.
LinkedIn shares doubled their valuation during the first day trading day after the IPO.
It’s evident: We are seeing the early stages of the Internet Bubble 2.0.
After an incredible internet hype ten years ago the Dot Com Bubble burst in 2000. 9/11 brought the last remaining web projects to a grinding halt in 2001. We (the internet veterans) are now seeing Internet Bubble 2.0 in the making.
Facebook’s valuation of a whopping $50 billion at the beginning of 2011 is more than three times its value in 2008, when Microsoft bought some share for $15 billion. The valuation seems pretty lofty given the 9 months earnings of $ 355 million in 2010 resulting from $ 1.2 Billion in revenues.
Or, as the Economist puts it: ‹Some tech start-ups look over-valued‹.
Or, as Mashable readers put it: ‹This can’t end well‹…
The following numbers are impressive.
(The majority of users are singles.)
Reading news regarding online backup services most of us realize that we don’t back up our Facebook content. That means that we wouldn’t loose much value if Facebook lost our data. Hence the Facebook valuation seems a bit steep.
Alternative Niche Players Building Up
Alternative niche players are creeping up on Facebook:
http://twitter.com/#!/Qualterio/status/25888807316361217
YapTIME is argueing that exactly BECAUSE everybody is on Facebook, you need a private social network where you better control who has access to which information.
When will Bubble 2.0 burst?
My take is that we can still ride the wave for a year or two. But be prepared to leave the party abruptly. And yes, that’s speculating and not investing…
From where we are standing today I think Bubble 2.0 will burst in two years from now, i.e. in 2013. I think it’s that soon because of the general acceleration of all things web.
If I had a hype index (I would still have to figure out the criteria basket…) from 0 to 10 I would guess that at the beginning of 2011 we are at 4.
Martin Weigert hat bei Netzwertig.com ein paar interessante Punkte aufgelistet, weshalb die Blase allenfalls etwas länger nicht platzt.
Aber dafür allenfalls bei Groupon?
Update March 10th 2011: Facebook
Or is Facebook rather valuated at a whopping $75 billion as of March? Are we sure we’re not seeing a bubble?
Update May 12th 2011: New Tech Bubble
The Economist calls it the New Tech Bubble: Irrational exuberance has returned to the internet world. Investors should beware.
Update May 19th 2011: LinkedIn IPO
The business network LinkedIn debuts at the New York stock exchange NYSE. The share price had been raised to $45 each ahead of the wildly popular IPO, it then still doubles within hours. At the end of the first trading day the company is worth a whopping $8.9 billion. That’s 37 times their annual revenues and 584 times their 2010 earnings…
http://twitter.com/#!/WalterSchaerer/status/89025476944855040