MIT Survey Values Social Networking Sites Based on Revenue Per User: Groupon on Top, Twitter in Last
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With a flood of social networking-related IPOs already released this year -- and many expected in 2012 -- one key metric could help investors decide on which way they want to go:
How much revenue each active user is generating for the company.
"Active" doesn't include mom or pop who signed up for FourSquare one Sunday and haven't checked in since (or logged-on for that matter).
MIT's Technology Review has put together a couple of neat charts taking a look at revenue per active user (RPAU) compared with peers decidedly in the same category. (Note: All data was taken from recent U.S. SEC filings, for the most part.)
Coming in last was Twitter. At less than $2 of RPAU, Twitter is looking more and more like MySpace. That doesn't bode well for the company should it want to IPO any time soon. Of course, the value of Twitter to many, including stock traders, may be more than what's implied. Twitter will need to find alternative ways to capitalize on this.
Groupon dominated the field, with nearly $80 of RPAU. MIT notes Groupon users generally buy things rather than simply serve as targets for advertising. It is a huge outlier.
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) was in second place at $29 RPAU, and Zynga next in line at about $5 RPAU.
Facebook was around $3 RPAU.
In terms of company valuation, Google wins this round, at about $170 billion. Facebook was second with $75 billion, and at $20 billion were Zynga and Groupon.
Pandora (NYSE: P), which recently IPO'd, was last, with just $1 to $2 billion of valuation. The Internet radio streamer also drew about $2 RPAU, placing it second from the bottom.
How much revenue each active user is generating for the company.
"Active" doesn't include mom or pop who signed up for FourSquare one Sunday and haven't checked in since (or logged-on for that matter).
MIT's Technology Review has put together a couple of neat charts taking a look at revenue per active user (RPAU) compared with peers decidedly in the same category. (Note: All data was taken from recent U.S. SEC filings, for the most part.)
Coming in last was Twitter. At less than $2 of RPAU, Twitter is looking more and more like MySpace. That doesn't bode well for the company should it want to IPO any time soon. Of course, the value of Twitter to many, including stock traders, may be more than what's implied. Twitter will need to find alternative ways to capitalize on this.
Groupon dominated the field, with nearly $80 of RPAU. MIT notes Groupon users generally buy things rather than simply serve as targets for advertising. It is a huge outlier.
Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) was in second place at $29 RPAU, and Zynga next in line at about $5 RPAU.
Facebook was around $3 RPAU.
In terms of company valuation, Google wins this round, at about $170 billion. Facebook was second with $75 billion, and at $20 billion were Zynga and Groupon.
Pandora (NYSE: P), which recently IPO'd, was last, with just $1 to $2 billion of valuation. The Internet radio streamer also drew about $2 RPAU, placing it second from the bottom.
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