14 Top Internet Minds Explain How Facebook's IPO Will Push Your Life Buttons

Motherboard:

On Facebook, we are paying rent in the form of data and tracked subjectivity without knowing what exactly is collected and who is given access to our data portrait and what they are using it for. The pressure of shareholders to achieve the imperative of a 30% growth rate is likely to result in even more brutish privacy invasions than we were served by the service thus far.

Read the whole story: Motherboard

Comments

[Machiventa68]

11:13 AM on 02/09/2012

Facebook is a very risky investment. As a private company, it made money for the owners and the employees. As a public company, the pressure to keep "growing" will be enormous and the methods for achieving that growth could become very unpleasant for the people who are "members" of Facebook.

The fact of the matter is Facebook is a fad; that's all it is. We could all easily live without it. Google, on the other hand, is not a fad and most of us would not like it if we couldn't use Google to find stuff on the Internet. They're two entirely different companies. If you are thinking about investing in the Facebook IPO, do not expect the same kind of returns that Google has made.

[TheIpsoFactory]

10:40 AM on 02/09/2012

Nobody talked about FB 5-6 years ago, and now it's supposedly the best thing since sliced bread. Like the iPhone.
The way things are going - don't you have a sneaking suspicion that another application/device is being developed out there that will soon outsex these things...?
This IPO is proposed as if FB is a permanent fixture in everybody's life, from here to eternity.
What I see is FB filling up with more ads, more ways to hustle users into buying something, more data mining, more and more people with social issues in real life filling the virtual airwaves with garbage about pedestrian issues...
I don't think FB is going away as fast as it grew to its present size. But I think it diluted the fan interest by introducing too many constraints, commercialism, streamlining and censoring. And the more Zuckerberg & Co keeps flogging and flaunting it, the sooner people will rediscover the joys of not being online all the time, and connecting socially in real life wil reemerge as a quality.

[robwilsontv]

10:09 AM on 02/09/2012

I'm glad that the IPO is creating excitement, but I'm afraid that folks that know nothing about investing will want to get in on this. Even if they make money in this, it could be detrimental to their future investment strategies because they will be tricked into thinking they are smart, rather than lucky. Here's how I think individual investors should handle this IPO:

http://youtu.be/Fbk7MqnzuvI