The Facebook Segmentation Problem

Facebook is about to go public, so obviously the company is getting a lot of attention and focus on its business and long-term prospects. I am not a frequent Facebook user, but I have enormous respect for fellow entrepreneurs and Mark Zuckerberg has done an outstanding job of building a product that people love to use and a very successful company. So congrats on the upcoming IPO. 

The big question, of course, is what is Facebook worth? It is an interesting discussion not only because so many people use Facebook, but because it is going public at an extraordinary valuation. Since Facebook provides a service that is free to users, it has to make money from its customers, advertisers. 

This is the interesting long-term question: can Facebook create more value for its customers (advertisers) than competitive solutions. If it can, it will continue to thrive, if not, it is a serious risk for any investor. Its users might be happy, but its customers won't be.