Social Network Investments

boltneck123

Hello all,

I'm an amateur investor. I was wondering what peoples take on the upcoming Facebook listing is, and how you feel about investing in any other social network companies?

I hold a very small portfolio, however a couple of investments are coming into fruition, so I'm beginning to way up my options and consider where I might want to put some money next.

Any thoughts?

Kind Regards.

TheSenSibleOne

boltneck123 wrote: »

Hello all,

I'm an amateur investor. I was wondering what peoples take on the upcoming Facebook listing is, and how you feel about investing in any other social network companies?

I hold a very small portfolio, however a couple of investments are coming into fruition, so I'm beginning to way up my options and consider where I might want to put some money next.

Any thoughts?

Kind Regards.

social networking is constantly changing, facebook has pretty much set the standard. There are hundreds of them out there but so few survive, largely because the only way to get money from them is advertising as most are free to join etc. Only way to get advertising is traffic to site

TheSenSibleOne

TheSenSibleOne wrote: »

social networking is constantly changing, facebook has pretty much set the standard. There are hundreds of them out there but so few survive, largely because the only way to get money from them is advertising as most are free to join etc. Only way to get advertising is traffic to site

So there needs to be alot of money spent to get it up and running

Money pits if you ask me

there are much better investments if you ask me

Aegis

The trouble with social networks is that they're only profitable while they're popular, and the internet can be very unforgiving at times. If new technology comes along and changes the face of social networking on the web, it's quite possible that even the larger more established networks might start to implode quite quickly.

I'd not invest into something like that myself unless the potential rewards were very impressive and the company had multiple revenue sources rather than just niche advertising.

boltneck123

Hmm,

I have thought around the areas mentioned in your comments, since I heard about Facebook making an IPO. That its value is intrinsically linked with its number of users, what is the point in advertisers paying them if there is no audience.

However, I have been reading about Facebook acquiring patents recently, one article of which detailed information on an agreement with Microsoft which sees Facebook gaining access to some 600 patents I think it was. Obviously Facebook needs to secure its technology platform to survive.

What if for instance a young social network company held a piece of technology that could put Facebook under threat, would we see similar behaviour that other large corporations employ and just buy them out mopping up everything?

jimjames

You could use a tech fund so that at least your investment is balanced with other ones and not dependent on a single social network.

Personally I think FB is very overvalued, with the switch to mobile devices their advertising rates are dropping as mobile doesn't show ads at present.

boltneck123

jimjames,

That does make sense to me, I think I'll start researching into that.

Do know of any tech funds that have potential that I could look at to give me a starting point?

Radiantsoul

Facebook has huge barriers to entry which makes it quite interesting. I guess in theory a rival could copy or leapfrog it. But GooglePlus has failed as it is hard to get all of your existing friends to move over to a new platform.

I am not convinced it is a great investment however as most of its potential growth has been priced in.

Linton

boltneck123 wrote: »

jimjames,

That does make sense to me, I think I'll start researching into that.

Do know of any tech funds that have potential that I could look at to give me a starting point?

Try here

Click on the individual funds and you will see a list of their main investments amongst other things. Whether they have potential is something you would need to decide from the available information.

opinions4u

High risk to the extreme.

Just imagine if anybody had been stupid enough to buy Friends Reunited for an obscene amount of money ...

boltneck123

Hi all,

Thanks Linton, seems like a good starting point.

Last night I came across a very new start up on AIM called Jellybook, from their website info, it would seem that their mission is to invest in social network technologies. I use iii so here is a link to them on there

Of course very new, only have cash in the bank and don't seem to have made a single investment yet. I'm currently reading about the background of the board etc.

Before people start shouting don't invest in that!! lol, calm down I haven't I'm only in my research phase and weighing up all potentials, I'm attracted to AIM because of the cheap shares that could potentially grow quite rapidly. I'm aware of the risk also, before anyone starts calling me an idiot, I'm only putting about 20% of my portfolio in AIM stocks, I want some risk and with it the excitement.

My quest continues, if I find anything that looks more decent and stable than Jelly I'll post it up, if anyone else has any nice picks then please share.

Naturally after putting my toes in the water over the past year or so I've learnt one thing, DYOR, I'll say it once and maintain that philosophy for my self.

Hope everyone is having a nice day, I'm going to check out that CAD post I saw, that was active on here a while back, when I first started and followed that share. Wonder what is cracking with that now.