We present updates on two story lines we’ve published this year: Salman Khan’s very promising education initiatives deserve a large story at Wired, and George Soros’ departure was discussed further on Bloomberg and the Financial Times.
MySpace killed Friendster only to be gobbled up by Facebook. Six years after NewsCorp bought MySpace for US$ 580 million it’s now sold for US$ 35 million. Google just launched its own “Facebook-killer” yesterday. There is absolutely no evidence yet whether Google Plus or any other competitor or substitute will bother Facebook. There is even less evidence about what’s “in the prices” – what prices? what metrics? what predictability of future cash flows? – so Social Media buyer beware.
Groupon’s IPO filing has given it a “financial high profile” that it’s probably regretting. So many people have been poring over its numbers and criticizing the business model quite vocally that it may even cool off some of the excitement. Why should we care? Because once you ignore the IPO-hype noise, the underlying criticism is, for once, based on analysis of the business model via its reported numbers. It’s still imperfect, but it’s better than the guesswork of a few months ago.
Groupon’s IPO filing is finally here, and the revenues growth curve is staggering. The company makes no money and doesn’t expect to make any so soon (it’s expanding extremely fast). There are plenty of doubts about the sustainability of its business model, competition and – much more importantly – margin of safety, especially given the preliminary level of disclosure and a few corporate governance quirks such as a dual-class share structure and a preference for “earnings before all the bad stuff” metrics. Yet it’s a business that one almost has to follow for insights on how these companies can impact anything from traditional retailing to data analytics. We suggest previous posts in Buysiders.com for background.
Mr. Van Den Berg of Century Management has just given an interview to GuruFocus.com, an interesting source keeping track of big-name investors. We took the opportunity to link to several articles and interviews, but it’s nice to note that Century’s own website is filled with good material in their Library page.
We wrote last Thursday about LinkedIn’s IPO, which closed the first day of trading up almost 110% with some “interesting” valuation metrics. While there’s talk of other Web 2.0/ Socialmedia companies IPOing, Vanity Fair had a recent profile on Zynga – a “Web 3.0″ company, certainly a buzzword we’ll hear a lot in the next few months. We remain interested in the business models arising from social media – if not in the valuations surrounding the sector.
LinkedIn’s IPO had staggering numbers today, and we highlight many stories discussing it – including one that highlights potential conflicts of interest between sellers and intermediaries in the IPO process.
Netflix is pushing into Latin America and the strategy is interesting: it’s trying to acquire content such as soap operas to stream them into customers’ homes. It’s good to imagine the trade-off playing in the Media companies’ strategy sessions – between the fear of cannibalizing sales and the need to partner with this strange ally now, while they’re still offering decent terms. We’re glad to sit on the sidelines.
From the “business models we must understand” series, group buying in Brazil is moving fast with two deals/ funding rounds announced in the last 2 days. We have a collection of links with these moves and to our previous posts on the subject.
The web is making it easier to fund/ develop companies that aren’t web-based at all, and actually make tangible products. In the words of an MIT professor, “The situation resembles the way that anyone with a laptop and an Internet connection can now start a Web-based company” – and we all know what innovation and wealth creation can come out of that “mold”.
