Facebook IPO: Beyond the Numbers

The ripple effects from a Facebook IPO will last a long time

The Facebook filing is enormous, and impressive.

Two years ago?  $777 million in revenues.  The next year?  That number practically tripled.  Then, doubled again for 2011.  Strong revenue numbers from a company some used to doubt could ever actually make money. See pdf of Page 16 of SEC filing that lists the dollar figures.

But Facebook's filing shows that this company, perhaps more than any other in Silicon Valley, is important to the tech ecosystem in a way that mere numbers can't show.  For example, its relationship to Zynga.  The social gamer has struggled with its own post-IPO stock price.  That is, until Facebook revealed how much of its revenues come from Zynga.  Cue the rapid buying of Zynga stock.  Thanks, Facebook.

Politicians are already calling this the social media election.  Twitter is playing a big role, yes, but Facebook has about 830 million members - of all ages.  That's huge to politicians.  According to Silicon Valley data tracker Socialbakers, Facebook is the place to be for politicians, both to reach fans, and to keep tabs on how the campaigns are going.

If you're a game, you want to be on Facebook.  If you're a business professional, or an actor, or a musician, or a teenager, or pretty much anything else, you have to be on Facebook.

Now, if you're an investor, you'll want to be in on Facebook. Start your engines.

One side note here: Mark Zuckerberg's older sister Randi was the keynote speaker at the iStrategy marketing conference in South San Francisco Wednesday.

"So kind of an exciting day for me to be chatting with you," Randi Zuckerberg said.  "Something really exciting happened today ... My son started crawling."

Zuckerberg, former CMO of Facebook, was visibly excited at the news of the IPO filing -- news she got in the car on the way to the conference. Her son, Asher, is nine months old.

Scott is on Facebook, and Twitter:  @scottbudman

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