MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Digg = $17.7 billion 'voodoo exuberance'?

Ronald Regan was called out for “voodoo economics” and Alan Greenspan called out “irrational exuberance.” Is today’s fixation on fixing unsubstantiated exuberant economic values to Web 2.0 free-to-users, bandwidth consuming, copyright infringement plagued, lowest common denominator, online Generation Y social network darlings “voodoo exuberance”?

The “exuberant voodoo” record:

 

MySpace: $15 billion latest Wall Street valuation, courtesy of RBC Capital

 

YouTube: $1.5 billion latest valuation, courtesy of New York Post

 

Facebook: $1 billion latest valuation, courtesy of Wall Street Journal

 

Digg: $200 million valuation, courtesy of Business Week

 

Grand total = $17,700,000,000.

 

What will $17.7 billion in “voodoo” worth yield “lucky” takers?

 

Hundreds of millions of non-paying teenage, student and under 34 year old users,

 

Continuously escalating bandwidth and infrastructure costs,

 

Millions of potential copyright infringement claims,

 

Uncontrolled sexual and anti-social behaviors,

 

Low production quality amateur content,

 

No proprietary technology,

 

No proprietary content…

What will the “exuberant” “lucky” owners be faced with? 

Advertising averse non-paying users,

No non-paying user loyalty,

No barriers to competitive entrants,

Legal oversight and regulatory compliance,

Technology obsolescence,

The next big fad …

Rather than multi-billion dollar social networking bounties to be had, MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Digg…may represent cash draining social networking albatrosses.