patrick.net

They are wasting money on random phone applications, I did read the news recently about one.

I could be wrong because I don't understand their business model. But to me it seems they are frivolous with their money, and will continue to avoid their stock. Poor management.

Can someone please explain, really, why is WhatsApp better than e-mail? It looks like bottled water to me. Ordinary e-mail is free, so why would I pay $19 billion for WhatsApp?

FortWayne says

I could be wrong because I don't understand their business model... Poor management.

Well, FB did earn more than $1 billion net last year, more than most 10yo companies. FB makes $ from targeted advertising and marketing campaigns, plus their revenue share from other companies that use FB's platform, e.g. Zynga. I think they have a good model and I respect their management, but the valuations seem very high to me.

With WhatsApp, they say they are getting 450 million users. Many of those users are already on FB though, so it isn't a big gain in net users. They say they are going to be leaders in mobile, but did they need WhatsApp for that? I know people who use WhatsApp, and I still don't see why it's better than e-mail.

The FB CEO is focused on anti-trust monopoly, that he learned from his mentors. That is why whatsapp had to be bought.

carrieon says

The FB CEO is focused on anti-trust monopoly, that he learned from his mentors. That is why whatsapp had to be bought.

But they didn't have to pay 19 mil. Although most of it is their potentially worthless stock.

carrieon says

The FB CEO is focused on anti-trust monopoly, that he learned from his mentors. That is why whatsapp had to be bought.

That wouldn't even explain why people use WhatsApp, let alone why FB bought it. Nobody has a monopoly on e-mail or texting with attachments, but big mergers always risk antitrust review.

E-man says

SFace,

Just sold all of my FB shares. Cleared almost $12,500 in profit. Thank you very much.

@EBguy and @mell, I figured you might want an update on this too.

PK loaded all of his personal belongings onto the shipping container on this past Wednesday. He's leaving for Brazil on Tuesday morning. Today is his last day at work.

So far, it looks like PK and I have gained about $700k in equity on our real estate investments. We still have about $300k tied up in these investments.

Total worth of these properties are about $2M. We have just shy of $1M in mortgage debt on them. We net about $3,600/month after expenses. The principal pay down is about $1,500/month. We might start to liquidate and/or 1031 exchange some of these assets into NNN next year.

Cheers.

win some, lose some. I never fear taking risk. Just need to win more than lose. maximize the win and minimize the loss.

really cool PK can quit and retire. Life is short, make everyday count. As you know, with kids, you kinda work for them, otherwise we would be semi retired too.

I think the easy money are gone in both the equity/housing market. Just load up as much cash/liqudity as possible, deploy it smartly in the meantime and wait for the next opportune time to strike.

whatsapp is a strategic piece for Facebook, at $4B cash and the rest in stocks for the employees only, its fair to say Whatsapp employees, all 50 of them or so are multimillionaires, billionaires.

You kinda know when FB did the equity offering last year, they were going to blow it on an acqusition on mobile dominance.

zero to hero company, that's what make the startup dream so alluring and why the SFBA is so unique. It is the only true place in the entire world, "employees" can strike it rich for no reason other than being with the right company at the right time.

curious2: That wouldn't even explain why people use WhatsApp...
Here's my understanding, YMMV. Tech, especially mobile tech, during this growth and expansion phase has been driven by regulations and platform limitations. There really is no reason for Twitter to exist, but someone saw a way to publish from a mobile platform using the constraints of SMS messages (140 characters). A friend was overseas and he used WhatsApp to keep in touch with family and friends. My understanding is that it was much cheaper for him to use WhatsApp over the cell data networks than to actually send texts (across borders and regulatory frameworks). Today, I have a Wireless Republic plan for $20 a month which makes emailing from my phone trivial. I can bypass facebook and also send texts to my hearts content. Try getting a plan like that overseas.

EBGuy says

Wireless Republic

I talked to someone else recently who has their 3g plan: https://republicwireless.com/plans

He is really happy with the service.

How will ATT and Verizon respond? Texting will be free for all plans, and the plans will go down in price.

EBGuy says

A friend was overseas and he used WhatsApp to keep in touch with family and friends. My understanding is that it was much cheaper for him to use WhatsApp over the cell data networks than to actually send texts (across borders and regulatory frameworks).

Before I had a smartphone I tried using my iPad for calls, texts, etc over Wi-Fi. It worked...it was just too big to fit in my pockets. Now with my smartphone I would think I could drop my texting plan and still do it for free but I have to use an alt phone number so I don't. For example:

http://www.pinger.com/content/home.html

Textfree EX gives you a real working phone number, so your
friends don't need the app to receive your messages. You can call or SMS text any mobile phone -- even if you don't have a calling plan.

There are a million apps that already do this and have for several years now. Whatsapp just puts it all in one place??? I must be missing something. FB must think this Whatsapp is the next Twitter: made famous by its popularity not its novelty.

JH said: There are a million apps that already do this and have for several years now. Whatsapp just puts it all in one place???
One place and tight integration with the address book. The phone number is what they use as a unique identifier, so it made integration easy and transparent. Its essentially a virtual network in parallel with the conventional cell network. You bypass all sorts of crazy fees by using this virtual network on your smartphone.

EDIT: that last sentence should read "crazy fees by using this virtual network on your smartphone overseas or between countries."

EBGuy says

You bypass all sorts of crazy fees by using this virtual network on your smartphone.

I assume you still need to pay data? Do you know what the fees are after the first year free?

Yeah, it seems integration is the biggest benefit, although cost reduction will help as people have said to put pressure on Verizon, etc.

SFace says

really cool PK can quit and retire. Life is short, make everyday count. As you know, with kids, you kinda work for them, otherwise we would be semi retired too.

I think the easy money are gone in both the equity/housing market. Just load up as much cash/liqudity as possible, deploy it smartly in the meantime and wait for the next opportune time to strike.

Got a confirmation from PK yesterday at 3:20PM that he made it there in one piece. He left his MBZ C32 here for me to sell on his behalf.

It's true. When you have kids, your keep on building the empire for them. It's no longer about you. It's all about them.

I agree. The easy money is gone. I completed 4 cash-out refi between Dec. and Feb. Back to full liquidity. Haven't had much luck chasing the apartment market. If I don't get anything between now and summer that fit my investing parameters, I'm done chasing. Haven't figured out a good way to deploy the liquidity yet. Maybe the best way is keeping it liquid. :)

EBGuy says

Whatsapp just puts it all in one place???

This reminds me of Steve Jobs putting all in one place. They call it the iPhone.

tr6 says

How will ATT and Verizon respond? Texting will be free for all plans, and the plans will go down in price.

Well, the market has spoken. Both of these stocks are sitting near 52 week low while the market is at 52 week high. Their forward P/E don't look good either.

curious2 says

Can someone please explain, really, why is WhatsApp better than e-mail?

Thank you to those who tried to answer, and if I may offer a possible answer to my own question, the benefit may reside in verification. E-mail is vulnerable to spoofing and spam, and even FB accounts can be faked or hacked. (In one famous example, a certain foreign country created a fake FB account in the name of a NATO general, and got a lot of information about NATO from other NATO personnel who "friended" the account.) If WhatsApp verifies that the message originated with the sender's phone, that would add value.

Also WhatsApp is reportedly about to add voice, so it may compete with Skype.

Otherwise I don't see much advantage regarding fees because you still need data access, in which case e-mail would likely work as well or better.

curious2 said: Otherwise I don't see much advantage regarding fees because you still need data access, in which case e-mail would likely work as well or better.
As an old guy coming from a desktop paradigm of communications, I tend to agree with you.
On the other hand, you have a culture of two decades of "texting" over cellphones. The going rate of overseas SMS messages is 25 cents. You can see why WhatsApp became instantly popular as the economics are overwhelming. They could grow rapidly once they achieved a critical mass. After four 'international' messages, WhatsApp has paid for its yearly fee. Again, this was indispensable to my friend overseas, while most of us Americans are left scratching our heads. At any rate, I am in no way justifying what FB paid, just pointing out the what and why of the WhatsApp user base. Note also that WhatsApp was not (and still isn't) ad supported.
WhatsApp doesn’t collect information like name, gender, address or age. Instead, users are approved after their phone numbers are authenticated.
“It’s a decidedly contrarian approach shaped by Jan’s experience growing up in a communist country with a secret police,” said Goetz in a blog post yesterday on Sequoia’s website. “Jan’s childhood made him appreciate communication that was not bugged or taped.”
Will be interesting to see what FB does with these new users.

jojo says

FB is a ponzi. It will collapse soon enough. They don't even allow auditors to verify 'likes' are not fraudulent.

I agree with this except for that they will make some money from the mostly older (and wealthier) demographic now perusing FB, and except for that they can keep this hype scheme going longer than a lot of shorts can stay solvent ;) They will be around for quite a while and eventually go the route of MySpace.

google facebook fraud on you tube

jojo says

smaulgld says

google facebook fraud on you tube

Yeah, I saw that video and it really is crazy marketing companies wouldn't have a problem with all this. Companies are spending a fortune and they can't even audit the results!

I just started a facebook page and tested it myself for $15- it is a complete waste- I wrote to Facebook and told them The few likes I got were from people that had liked thousands of pages none remotely close to economics and real estate.
https://www.facebook.com/smaulgld

jojo says

What a joke. Fraudster company!

Since the page was new and all the other likes I got were from people I knew it was obvious who the bought likes were. I could also tell that even though they said one of my blog posts received something around 3000 views. I didn't register one click from Facebook according to my google analytics.
Why would a company even bother with facebook? I only did it because I had seen the video about how bad it really is.

How long can they pull this off?

Goran_K says

SFace says

The way I see it, FB can be a 40% operating margin business. If you slap a 40-50% growth for the next three years, we're talking about a 15B dollar busines with operating profits of $6B or $4B net of tax.

lol hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

well, here it is about a year later

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/facebook-reports-second-quarter-2014-200500433.html

46% operating margin and on track for 6B+ in pre-tax income. growth is 60%. I though it would take 3 years, but looks like FB will make 6B in 2014 not 2016

OP: obvious ad is obvious.

clearly patnet is on the list of targets for forum spam.

tr6 says

E-man says

SFace,

Just sold all of my FB shares. Cleared almost $12,500 in profit. Thank you very much.

Wow, you probably timed the top. Only time will tell.

Apparently not. FB made new high. They broke out of the $72 range. I was waiting for it to form a handle and buy it back at around $64-$65 range. Nope, it just broke out without forming a handle. I see this stock going to $90 within the next 12 months.

you should buy Facebook shitstock, spying on Americans is very profitable.

Hysteresis says

buy high, sell low is always a great investing strategy!

Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh!!!

tr6 says

E-man says

SFace,

Just sold all of my FB shares. Cleared almost $12,500 in profit. Thank you very much.

Wow, you probably timed the top. Only time will tell.

Apparently not. :(

E-man says

Apparently not. :(

FB profit margins are ridiculous, but sales are still very low. 3B a quarter is only 12B a year for a market cap of 200B. I have not used FB in a while, glad to get off it.

tr6 says

E-man says

Apparently not. :(

FB profit margins are ridiculous, but sales are still very low. 3B a quarter is only 12B a year for a market cap of 200B. I have not used FB in a while, glad to get off it.

I got you beat. I have never used FB and don't even have an account with them.