Is it a search engine, a phone or a building? Facebook will make a big announcement later today….but what in blue blazes is it.
“Come see what we’re building.”
The Social Network wooed media to their cave in Menlo Park today with the above invite, as it looks set to reveal what the creators of the social network are “building.”
The event is taking place later today, 10am PST US time, and goes on until after lunch.
Speculation about the nature of the project is ranging from a Facebook phone (done the rounds before), a new mobile service encompassing a (Google style) search engine, to a tour of its new Frank Gehry designed building.
The mobile service scenario, if true, would pit Facebook against big players Google and Microsoft in the search market and could potentially lure in significantly more traffic than the 1.01 billion members currently on its site, and help to put more ad dollars in its growing back pocket.
600 million users connect on Facebook every month on mobile devices, the network said in October.
Facebook shares rose above $30 mark to $31.07 (+40%) on close of trading on Friday last, on speculation of what may come later today, on top of anticipated good sales results for the final months of 2012, set to be announced at the end of the month.
Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook “has more revenue momentum than any company we cover heading into 2013,” declared Deutche Bank analyst Ross Sandler.
Mobile-ads on the newsfeed is “the game-changer, but the ramp up is happening much faster than our initial estimates and we see several new catalysts emerging.”
Zuckerberg assured investors in October, “we are deeply integrating monetization into our product teams in order to build a stronger, more valuable company.”
Lets wait and see what today brings.
