Speaking on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street” program Monday, Eric Jackson, founder of Ironfire Capital, said that Facebook will lose its dominance as a social network in five to eight years.

In his forecast, Jackson cited Facebook’s inability to crack the mobile market and the stock’s 27 percent nosedive since the company’s IPO.

“In five to eight years they are going to disappear in the way that Yahoo has disappeared,” Jackson said. “Yahoo is still making money, it’s still profitable, still has 13,000 employees working for it. But it’s 10 percent of the value that it was at the height of 2000. For all intents and purposes, it’s disappeared.”

Not surprisingly, the death of Facebook is not a new idea. Link 1. Link 2.



  1. John Paul says:

    Time to focus more on the tools that boost productivity such as postfrenzy.com.

  2. msbpodcast says:

    Wall Street R.I.P. ≠ no I.P.O.

    Facebook had a very successful I.P.O. They made billions.

    Its only dead to banks, quick buck artists and vulture capitalists.

    Wall street confusion is what happens when a small company with a huge web presence gets an I.P.O. (Remember the Google I.P.O.? The share price kept climbing and climbing, but weren’t in a depression then.)

    The, ahem, institutional investors who buy the shares first, have discovered that people, aka the muppets, were not interested because they had to waste their money on things like rent and food.

    This I.P.O. may very well mark the real state of the economy.

    • dusanmal says:

      Exact statement should be “Facebook raised a lot of money by IPO”. That does not decide if it is success or not. What decides success is both stock performance down the line and actual corporate performance down the line, influencing each other.
      There this article is right. Basic profitability of Facebook comes from ads. Ad people ain’t stupid. Every survey shows that no one is clicking or even looking. Hence – ad bubble for Facebook. (Why not for Google? – you use Facebook for personal interaction, you use Google to SEARCH for what you want/need , many time sellable products – there ads have some traction as you voluntarily look for stuff). So, in few years to come Facebook needs either to invent a completely new online profitability model. Maybe. If they do – that’s a win. Or they need to start charging (to match current stock value 10-20$/year from EACH user would mean success). Unlikely. So, I’d agree with this article (and recent very similar conclusion from A.Curry of NoAgenda fame). Slim chances for survival over 5 years. Add to the picture fickle social structure on Internet and chances shrink further. Facebook=AOL of the past 100%.

      • msbpodcast says:

        I agree that Facebook = AOL.

        Dont forget AOL was such a big fuckin’ deal that they got to pair up with another merged outfit Time & Warner.

        Stephen M. Case made out like a bandit. Time Warner? Not so good…

        Digg is another property who’s meteoric rise was fueled by naiveté on the part of Wall street.

        Kevin Rose made out like a bandit. Digg? Not so much.

        Mark Zuckerberg made out like a bandit. The banks and other profiteers who were betting on this thing going up like a rocket? Not so good.

        Facebook as a concept is not going away.
        Facebook as a destination web site is not going away.
        Facebook as an investment vehicle… Fuggedaboudid!! It was never here.

  3. derspankster says:

    It’s fashionable to slam Facebook because of their IPO. Welcome to the bandwagon!

  4. Parker says:

    Fine by me.

  5. bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist and Jr Culture Critic says:

    I don’t understand what the deal is with FB. They do an IPO and offer their stock at a price. “Evidently” they priced it too high.

    THATS WHY ITS CALLED GAMBLING.

    Jesus Christ–every IPO buyer thinks he is a genius and has a system. THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS. They are the ones with the stock selling you a Siren’s Dream.

    Silly Hoomans==thinking they can win at Three Card Monty.

    Step right up……………

  6. deowll says:

    Based on earnings FaceBook is worth maybe $10 or $15 a share.

    Predicting how the company will do on mobile is beyond me but these kinds of companies to tend to come and go.

    • sargasso_c says:

      I entirely agree. But with all growth in hardware being mobile, it seems unwise to paint a rosy picture of a company shackled to a desktop.

  7. Much about nothing says:

    LOL. FB is narcissistic, time wasting, and used by the same people who complain about privacy invasion and identity theft.

    Maybe we should use it for online elections. The candidate most befriended on FB wins!

  8. NewformatSux says:

    Who cares? They got people to pay $38 a share. If at that point, the price drops, the original investors still got their $38 a share.

  9. John E. Quantum says:

    Facebook could sell different levels of privacy to users, as well as the right to delete old embarrassing or incriminating information. That’s where the real money is.

    • bobbo, the pragmatic existential evangelical anti-theist and Jr Culture Critic says:

      I just hear a report on a proposed law re FB or maybe it was Twitter that would REQUIRE the sponsoring website to remove all accounts of kiddies on the request of the kiddies parents. FB or Twit refuses to do it voluntarily.

      Gee – seems to me a good law for EVERYONE regarding their own account??

      Easy to do. “No take backs” is for kiddies. Not our corporate job creators.

  10. mharry860 says:

    Adam predicted this a couple of weeks ago on TWIT, $15.00 in 5 months, irrelevant in 5 years.

  11. B. Dog says:

    Well Zuckerburger is could be set for life, now that people bought 15% of his company. Actually, he could get life if the worm turns and some sci-fi future folk look askance at the I.P.O. If he blows through all that money, and I think he is the kind of guy that can, there is a potential revenue stream in selling information to the government, but that would make him a snitch, eh?

  12. Dallas says:

    They overpriced their IPO, that’s all.

    Long term, FB is not going anywhere but up. They have Metcalf’s Law in their favor with 900M users.

    Sure, they need to figure out how to monetize this but they will.

  13. JimD, Boston, MA says:

    We see that the FaceHoles are looking for new recruits in the Under 13s !!!

    Zuck now wearing a dirty raincoat with nothing underneath ???

  14. sheila says:

    Yahoo wasn’t worth what it sold for in 2000, either.

    Sheila
    http://survivingsurvivalism.com

  15. orchidcup says:

    Somebody please tell me. What is Facebook, and who gives a flying flip inside a rolling doughnut?

  16. April Paine says:

    I don’t think Facebook is going anywhere soon (but I do love the image you used). I think FB, however, will encounter grave (pun intended) problems if they choose to start charging users. http://thinkbigonline.com.au/will-facebooks-ipo-lead-to-paid-user-accounts/ This would be a very bad idea indeed. If FB is having issues, they better not take it out on its 900m loyal customers. April


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