Valuing Facebook
I was in Times Square Friday, watching the news camera crews setting up for shots with the NASDAQ 7-story high marquee behind them, toting the new FB listing. I had actually written this Thursday night, and held off posting it because as much as I thought the Facebook IPO was over-valued, I prefer not to [...]
Facebook Ads and the Long Tail
In advance of the first tick on Facebook stock at the NASDAQ open tomorrow, it seems everyone has a comment about their revenue model and whether it supports a $100B valuation. Unfortunately, a lot of the criticism leveled at Facebook comes from an advertising world that still hasn’t figured out the long tail effect. Forbes’ [...]
Formative Economics
I’m a big believer in formative economics – the process of bootstrapping a network of consumers, producers and markets where there is little infrastructure. We are often quick to send money; it’s what my daughter Elana calls the “good intentions of the muzungu“ (Kinyarwanda for “white person”, in a purely descriptive way) to give money [...]