One of the biggest stories floating around the SEO world, and world in general, has been the collapse of Facebook’s stock offering which endured about a 12% loss in it’s second day of trading. Investors have concerns because they have sunk a lot of money into Facebook and watched a significant portion evaporate almost immediately. SEOs have concerns as well, but from a different angle because the Facebook IPO was supposed to change the game and now that may not be so true as was thought only days ago.
Facebook has their money in place – as a company, they didn’t really lose. The individual investors did. The problem, however, is that with share prices sliding so quickly and seemingly destined to continue downward several more points to a truer valuation according to some analysts, Facebook is not likely to see a second wave of investments significant enough to propel many of the projects that had planned, or were at least rumored to have planned.
The other problem is that Facebook took loans ahead of the IPO to get the ball rolling on several major projects. That money still has to be paid back. With there being no demand for more shares to hit the market to raise capital, all Facebook can do is try to sell more advertising or sell it at a higher rate – possibly both. The danger in that is that it may drive away users willing to try newer networks further aggravating the problem, Any way you slice it, SEOs may want to hold off on getting ready for many of the rumored new features on Facebook.
