So, yeah, Facebook. They had their earnings call yesterday. Mark Zuckerberg probably had a lot more fun watching The Social Network.
Overall, it was neither good nor bad; the problem was that Facebook seems to have no interest in improving the good or fixing the bad:
After Facebook posted unspectacular results for its second quarter — its first report as a public company — management offered few details about what to expect in coming months.
The absence of specificity came as a disappointment to Facebook watchers. Citigroup’s Mark Mahaney said that while the results shouldn’t be viewed either “as dramatically good or bad,” he said that key questions remained — in particular, the future of Facebook’s mobile monetization as well as the future of Facebook’s user engagement.
On the other hand, we have to admit we’re loving this spectacle as Facebook treats the institutional investors and other assorted greedheads exactly how they’ve treated the rest of America: Oh, you’re worried about your money. Don’t worry. We’ve got a plan. We won’t tell you what it is. You’ll just have to trust us.
That said, Facebook stock tanked another eleven points in after hours trading, meaning it’s down to $24 a share. Don’t expect that to change. Facebook’s got $10 billion in the bank, but that money is only going to last it so long and frankly if the stock keeps sliding, they’re not going to have a chance to spend it.
Facebook is working on integrating advertising into its mobile apps, but it’s slow going. They use “social ads.” You know those annoying “stories” you scroll past to read your actual Feed? It makes $1 million a day off of those, which would be great if they weren’t a company valued in the billions.
In short, Facebook isn’t listening to Wall Street. The question now is whether Wall Street will make it listen.
image courtesy Robert Scoble on Flickr