Originally intended as a patent medicine when it was invented in the late 19th century by John Pemberton, Coca-Cola was bought out by businessman Asa Griggs Candler, whose marketing tactics led Coke to its dominance of the world soft-drink market throughout the 20th century. Coca-Cola company currently trading at New York Stock Exchange(NSE) is valued at USD 99.5 billions.
"The Facebook" was started in 2004 as students social networking platform by Havard University dropout Mark Zuckerberg. Since then facebook has been expanding exponentially. Currently, facebook is boasting of its 800 million accounts of its active users. Facebook has revolved to become a must use tool to advertisers and social net-workers. Facebook is planning to file for IPO before April 2012 with valuation of about USD 100 billions. This valuation is the one that is fascinating.
Coca-cola valued at $99.5 billion and Facebook at $100 billion left me astonished. A company over a century old being beaten by a 7 (seven) year old social networking company! I always believed in time factor but as time counts on i get convinced that not all parameters of the market adhere to the time factor or FIFO! Both companies have global reach but coke is a product company and fb is a service company.
Twitter, Linkedin, facebook, Baidu and Google are among the players that have shaken my previous cling to the old school approach of time factor. Actually, it seems like tech companies defy time factor most of the times. Other tech companies like Netscape and mySpace, tagged and many more are not as popular as they were and some have already closed their shows so we are still on testing the depth of facebook business model.
With current trends and world evolution old schools is not a way forward anymore. 'Old is gold' will not hold forever! From the citation of Cocacola and facebook any reasonable man would have valued facebook much lower to coke but that's not the case here.However, time will tell whether this kind of valuation was based on value or on popularity of facebook.
New innovation and discoveries will shape the future world and things will never be same always .Example, Services like Mobile Money Transfer services(Mpesa, tigopesa and Airtel Money) will have a great impact on financial services especially on the large banks. Also online banks pose a great risk to the Brick and mortar banks. Imagine getting paid your salary via mpesa, paying your daladala bus fare via mpesa etc. These trends should be thought well and tapped by visionaries.
Science and technology is taking a toll on the old way. We should ensure that the easiness of doing things and opportunities that comes up with Technology impacts on our l ways of doing things so that we can crunch the time factor as many other guys allover the world.
By Emmanuel Akyoo
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