The Blue Bulb of Facebook

For those who need the history of the reference, I will give it quickly. Once upon a time, the tulip industry was a big business and the hunt for a blue bulb was the buzz of the Netherlands. Then someone managed to get the color blue into a tulip and the frenzy made the ownership of blue bulbs seem essential to everyone. The result was a terrific bubble in the market and then a popping crash that left the last owner standing with a worthless commodity and bankruptcy.

I am not going to say this will happen at the start of the IPO, but the demand is going to be insane. I have family members that are desperate to participate and I have heard investment houses saying their customers want to buy at any price.

But what is this stock and why does it deserve the demand it has generated? It’s not the revenues driving the demand, it’s the familiarity. And in case you never heard this before, familiarity breeds contempt.

Personally, it is with great reluctance that I go on Facebook. It is constantly reporting on me, in very public ways, on things I would like to keep private. I have yet to find a way to be professional on Facebook, since my friends have chosen to cross my two identities and, candidly, it’s too hard to explain to them anyway.

So for me, Facebook does not work. But I recognize my love of Barbershop Music, my religious history and a few other family legacies make me a minority in interests if not in race.

I am selling a T-shirt that reads, “Social Networks? AOL was mine, MySpace was my Daughter’s and Facebook is my Wife’s.”

I am not sure that demographics of this is well understood. The reality is, I have quite a few relatives that live on Facebook, but it’s also clear that they have yet to need a professional life. Perhaps professionalism is out the window.

Maybe keeping family matters away from work cannot be accomplished in the world of Bring Your Own Devices.

On the other hand, the story of privacy violation is getting pretty intense: companies demanding to know your Facebook identity, people losing their jobs for personal postings. All of this points to a naïveté, a bubble of trust that Facebook has never appreciated.

If you believe that is the future, then the stock may always rise.

But cool is something that comes and goes. Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! all have historical trends. And in Facebook’s case, it is hard to see growth when saturation has already been achieved.

At the end of the day, the stock will soar and, based on good will, it will probably hit prices akin to APPL and GOOG before the end of the euphoria. However, at the end of the day, it’s a YHOO and a Zynga of a stock.