indeed, facebook is too expensive for any one company to acquire now. the firm turned down $1.6B from YHOO last year.

google parted with $3B of its $10B hoard for DCLK.

YHOO can't afford it either.

only MSFT can.

the question, then, is: will one Harvard drop out sell to another?

Forget it.

Mark's been able to resist the temptation to cash out so far - now they are going to make a run for an IPO, prompted no doubt by investors Accel, Greylock, and Peter Thiel.

The market is getting mighty frothy.

Facebook is a genuinely badass company, but the platform is going to hurt. Widgets are ugly and annoying and they make Myspace nasty. They will make Facebook ugly too.

Mark is a smart guy though. He's one-upped the rest and it's pretty cool to see a 22-year old guy having the world hanging from his nuts. Mark, I respect you. You are a stud. An arrogant one, but a stud.

Jay, you're right, Mark has a set on him and that's what I love about the guy. I used to subscribe to the delusion that if facebook didn't sell they were screwed, but I really believe they can become a respectably large and profitable platform on their own. I'm not sure where their revenues are at right now, but I know they're profitable enough that they certainly can make their own destiny.

It's not clear to me that the draw is something other than distribution. I'm wondering how someone with an actual business model could take advantage of this, other than just the distribution opportunities. I've actually thought of a couple of monetizable things, but I don't know how feasible they'd be.

I like this new platform quite a bit. But at the end of the day, it still strikes me as stupid. Yes, it will aid in growing page views and ensuring further site stickiness, which in such a fickle consumer market is critical. However, the fickle nature is what truly matters. Undergoing dramatic growth as they are is great, but in the long term, means very little. As we saw with Friendster, people will eventually move on for the next big thing. And when that happens, they'll no longer be getting 10 figure offers. Whether that takes a year or two is of no consequence. In the end, he'll come out with less money than he would have if he'd sold out.

I know, everybody is big on the IPO, which they believe will be a smashing success. People talk of how it will be the biggest internet stock offering since Google went public. Now, I rather doubt the two will be comparable in scope. But, even if they are, Facebook's success is far more likely to be short lived, since they aren't diversified in their offerings, and they don't provide an essential function that is unmatched elsewhere. Already it's fallen from the number 2 social network to the 3rd ranking one. Does anybody honestly see something losing traction that quickly as being fit for an IPO?