As witnessed here at Amaze PR, 2012's digital
headlines have so far been fuelled by the escalating fight for
power between Google, Facebook and the numerous allies that each
internet giant has managed to acquire.
With the two powerhouses announcing developments and
rolling out platform evolutions on a daily basis, rumours reaching
Amaze PR Towers suggest that Facebook is about to strike a major
blow by floating the company on the financial stock
exchange.
Launching the company as a publicly traded business,
the Wall Street Journal has predicted that the sale could raise as
much as $10 billion (£6.4 billion) in an offering that would value
the company at $75 billion to $100 billion.
Literally overnight, this will cement Facebook as
one of the world's largest public companies alongside McDonald's,
Amazon.com, Visa and Bank of America Corp. Most importantly though,
it creates a new battlefront for Facebook to take on its bitter
rival, Google, who floated the company back in 2004 when it secured
an initial market value of $23 billion (£15
billion).
Times have of course changed in those few years and
no doubt Facebook's floatation will dwarf Google's, but it still
has a long way to go before challenging Google's current valuation
of $184 billion (£117 billion).
Money aside, the move is critical for Facebook to
evolve and grow which will resonate with our line of work.
Zuckerberg is gazing far into the future and the fundamental
problem with companies such as Facebook, and Google, is that
there's nothing tangible about their product. At the core is a $100
billion social network platform, albeit one that has 800m+ active
users, and if the social trend for online networking was to
decline, which has been suggested by experts, Facebook would
disappear as fast as it appeared.
The flotation is Facebook's opportunity to transport
itself away from the virtual realm and into the real world. Once
complete, Amaze PR envisages that we'll see the company expanding
its portfolio, creating products that don't solely rely on its
social network, but obviously enhance it. This is where it becomes
interesting as these virtual visionaries turn their creative
attention to other areas of communication and
consumerism.
Standalone software, hardware or even mobile devices
- all these routes are a possibility. It's no different to what
Google have been doing and are continuing to attempt. Android for
example which has been a phenomenal success for Google and more
recently its purchase of Motorola.
Be warned…when there's no more room online, the
geeks shall walk the earth! And they're here to change our
lives.