The headlines after Facebook’s stock market debut make for interesting reading.
Reuters captured the mood of the media with “Historic Facebook debut falls flat”.
Bloomberg was in the same vein, “Facebook Fails Day-One Pop, Lags Behind Google”.
LA Times was not going to be left behind, “Facebook IPO falls short of the hype”.
I like the one from CNET, “Facebook IPO: after the hype, a ho-hummer”.
As always, The Economist does a neat job, “Not top of the pops”.
NY Times confirmed its advancing years with some very flat prose, “Facebook’s Debut Marred by Trading Problems”.
What’s going on here? Envy? Love to hate Facebook? Here’s a company that’s ended day one trading above the top end of its IPO pricing band, is now valued at 100 billion dollars plus and yet everyone’s going on as if tragedy has struck it.
The real story may be the profits that Facebook will have to earn to justify such a sky-high valuation. This (story) may tell us whether Facebook will be seen, 10 years from now, as hoopla or as an infrastructure utility around which much of our lives get built.
