Weekly Internet Update: Facebook, Google & LinkedIn
This week, we saw some significant developments related to Facebook, Google & LinkedIn, which could impact their value in the coming years. Here are some of them:
Facebook filed yet another amendment to its S-1 filling, in the run-up to its expected IPO on May 17. It is expected to start its roadshow next week. Its IPO will be priced at $28 to $35, at a valuation of $77 billion to $90 billion. At the mid-point of the range it will raise over $10 billion in one of the largest IPOs in history.
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Facebook’s upcoming messenger app for the iPad and iPhone was also revealed. It will come with a ton of features as well as video chat support. It also launched Facebook Offers for all local U.S. businesses, enabling them to create their own offers and market them to their followers on the network. If this takes off, Facebook could make a significant amount of money by facilitating daily deals and discounts for local businesses.
Check out our complete analysis of Facebook
Google made a number of significant upgrades to its existing offerings. It updated Google Docs with new fonts, templates and Google Drive support. It also updated the Google Play Store with carrier billing support for movies, music and books. Google News also saw an update with larger images, real-time updates and Google+ comments. Finally, Google added social reports to Google Analytics, which enables customers to see additional details about which sites are linking to their content.
Check out our complete analysis of Google
LinkedIn was in the news primarily for two reasons. One, it reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2012. It posted revenue of $188.5 million, which has more than doubled year-over-year. Its registered user base has increased to 160 million, growing 58% year-over-year, while its corporate solutions customer base has expanded to 10.4K, growing 118% year-over-year.
Secondly, it revealed that it had acquired SlideShare, one of the most popular online document sharing service, for $119 million in cash and equity. LinkedIn was already working closely with SlideShare as a partner to enable easy sharing of SlideShare presentations on LinkedIn. Given that they both target the same audience — online professionals — this might be a great fit for LinkedIn’s portfolio of offerings.
However, despite all this, LinkedIn’s stock is still highly overvalued. Here’s why: Why LinkedIn is highly overvalued.