Twitter, Facebook Holiday Shopping Lists Include Going Public
Twitter and Facebook are certain to leverage their value as real-time, personalized lifelines for consumers during the holiday shopping blitz when the social networks seek to become publicly traded media companies in 2010.
It beats any road show the companies can make touting their virtues to perspective investors, which AOL is doing in preparation for its Dec. 9 public spin-off from Time Warner.
Shoppers and retailers have been creatively using Twitter texts and Facebook posts since Black Friday with the rapid exchange of information about inventory and pricing of favorite items, last minute discounts, and even parking and traffic jams.
Best Buy has launched a Twitter-inspired play on "help force" called Twelpforce which provides consumers with real-time, on-demand advice from some 2,500 employees. The growing number of mass merchants using Twitter to provide shoppers with more customized service range from J.C. Penney and Toys "R" Us to, Gap and Bloomingdale's.
The myriad of smart phone and other mobile apps to aid shoppers and travelers this holiday season is just the beginning of what will be a continuous stream of practical and ingenious uses of social media networks to make life a little easier and enjoyable.
Twitter, Facebook and other social networks are becoming indispensible for all age groups for status updates especially from mobile devices, according to research from the Pew Internet & American Life Project. The continuing growth of Facebook's 300 million users worldwide and the double digit increase in Twitter users to nearly 20 million from a year ago positions them to capitalize on a strengthening stock market and economy over the next 18 months.
The advantages to going public include the ability to continuously fund expansion by issuing stock as deal currency and allowing Wall Street to support their fortunes. LinkedIn, the longest-running and most profitable social network for business use, could surprise by leading the initial public offering IPO charge next year.
Despite reasonable arguments against becoming public entities - which include potentially stifling free-spirited innovation -the leading social networks are making it clear that an IPO is top of their wish lists. Facebook's recent creation of a dual stock class structure, which is a controversial but routine fixture of many public media companies, assures founding CEO Mark Zuckerberg and other top executives more control and returns on the company's entrepreneurial growth. Zuckerberg, Twitter co-founder Brad Stone and LinkedIn cofounding chairman Reid Hoffman are firmly rejecting any talk of selling out.
Morgan Stanley's recent investment in Twitter, providing $10 million of the $100 million in additional funding raised in September, is considered by many on Wall Street a sure sign that an IPO is in the offing. The investment bank took Google public in 2004.
SecondMarket, which tracks the potential stock price of private companies, reports Facebook shares have jumped more than 40 percent in recent months to $21 each, giving the company a $10 billion price tag.
Like most things on the Web, what goes around, comes around. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are becoming the target of their own cyber chat as experts wager on their valuations and future fortunes. Social network sharing this holiday season -- about shopping, travel and beyond - will also provide a potent barometer of their rising public values.