Facebook published its IPO video, you can watch it here. Some observations (in random order).

First of all, this video is so much more professional than the ones we saw before (Zynga, Groupon). Gone are the executives presenting their slides in slightly uncomfortable positions, and instead we see a streamlined performance of relaxed-looking people.

The videos work great to present the senior team, and to highlight case studies of selected clients (both huge corporations, and small businesses). Video is less good to present some of the extraordinary facts about Facebook. Making the point that Facebook is the American Idol final, times 2, but then every day for advertisers could be made stronger on a visual. But the video is loaded with these extraordinary statistics that could have been emphasized more, maybe at the expense of some of the product feature explanations (time line, news feed, etc.)

The video is also modest about putting Facebook in the development of the Internet. They could have claimed that Facebook is redefining the net, by putting a social layer on top of it. The video focusses most of the time on what Facebook is today. The investor wants to know what Facebook could be. The payment business for example, only comes out in minute 28 of the presentation. The legal council probably advised against speculating too much about the future of the company in an IPO presentation.

The financial section of the presentation is too short. Stats fly over the screen, and at no single point do you get a complete financial picture of Facebook. Growth, cost, margins. profits, cash flow. The designers of the video probably thought that the objective is to get people interested enough for them to seek out the detailed financial statements themselves.

The question is whether the video should have spent more time on addressing the key concerns that investors might have. We all know that Facebook is incredibly successful, and incredibly useful (I think 100% of investors considering an investment in Facebook use it themselves). But we do want to know is whether Facebook can be a profitable and growing business, and most of all whether it is worth paying $100b for.

So, all in all an incredibly professional video. My only comment would that they could have made it more targeted at the cynical investor.

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