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Wall Street analyst: in 2016, Facebook will have six trillion dollars in annual revenue (wired.com)
4 points by byrneseyeview on Aug 6, 2007 | hide | past | favorite | 13 comments


I believe that some of these 'analysts' are in need of help with a more full understanding of economics. Particularly the seemingly external factors that turn out to be fundamentals when thinking about economies. Energy inputs necessary to generate 'wealth' for example. What population would be necessary to support that level of economic activity. Keep in mind that the larger your population, the more of your fixed amount of energy resources you will need to do simple support of the population outside of other economic activities.

I am somewhat uncertain as to whether this is a misprint, however, I felt compelled to point out that US$6 trillion is an enormous amount of economic activity. By way of comparison, WalMart's revenue is about US$350 billion. Global telecom market sits somewhere between US$1 trillion and US$3 trillion depending on how we count things. The energy inputs that go into supporting this economic activity are mind boggling. Keep in mind that these industries invest a great deal in keeping those energy inputs to a minimum, that is, they invest in 'efficiency'. Still the inputs are incredulous! I suspect energy efficiency is not a strength that Facebook is possessed of.

I am fairly confident that this is the point that Warren Buffet would pose a question like will people need more Facebook than food? Maybe they will. I just ask that everyone try to keep in mind everything that needs to happen for Facebook to reach those numbers.

Then again . . . Maybe he is factoring in the crash of the US Dollar . . .

Never mind.


$6T is roughly half of the total U.S. GDP. Assuming that U.S. GDP grows at typical 3% rates or so over the next 10 years, this is saying that FaceBook will account for ~40% of the U.S. economy by 2016.

Something about that seems a little wrong to me...


You're right . . .

Even with a crash, this is just asinine.

It's that midwestern courtesy of mine. It obliges me, at times, to simply point out the deficiencies in arguments for silly positions as opposed to dismissing them out of hand. It is difficult to imagine a scenario culminating in the situation that the analyst postulates.

AAarrrggghhh!!!

I just did it again!!!

Listen to nostrademons.


Disco Stu: "Did you know that disco record sales were up 400% for the year ending 1976? If these trends continue -- eyyyy!"


Seems to be some confusion.

Article gives Facebook a ~$6 billion valuation today.

It then says that after we have evolved into transhumans Facebook will have 6,049,602,150 billion dollars worth of revenue. This is actually $6 quintillion, not $6 trillion.

I'm assuming this is something of a joke, or a typo. Probably the former?


If anyone believed that, wouldn't Yahoo have paid facebook the 12 billion they wanted?


The article says 6 Billion not 6 Trillion.


US$6 billion makes more sense.

Still a little foolhardy. A projection that goes out 10 years in this industry? Not smart.

If you give someone US$1 billion, they cannot hurt WalMart much. I suspect they could hurt Facebook a great deal. Maybe the 'new hotness' will come along, maybe Yahoo! will get their act together, maybe Apple (iPhone) is working on an announcement for the next MacWorld conference, maybe some kid is in his dorm right now about to make the whole social networking thing P2P.

The Facebook Fawnfest needs to cool off a bit.


Actually, it says 6,049,602 Trillion


Hmm...when I click on the link, it says "and projects Facebook ad revenue as $6,049,602,150 billion!" in the middle of the text (end of second paragraph). Maybe we are looking in different places?


Oh I see what you are saying. No, I don't think they meant to say that number and then put another 9 zeros after it. I think they meant it to have it read as the number printed, i.e. what you would say aloud when reading if the word billion was not printed. Of course, one of us could actually register and read (or at least skim) the analyst document :)


true true. However, the bit about telepathy led me to think that it might be tongue and cheek. I don't care enough to go and check, but if you do...

:P


The six trillian revenue is possible if we have the Weimer-like inflation some are predicting.

"So, what's it really worth?" is a question best answered with another question, "...before or after the next flash in the pan replaces it?"




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