My answer short answer would be “No."
And, unlike with Groupon, it has nothing to do with not liking the company and thinking that they had built something using smoke and mirrors that would burn a lot of you and act as a quick way to part you from a lot of your hard earned dollars.
In the case of Facebook, I actually like the company. I use the product. I think they have a great service and I think they have managed the company in a way that has made it oriented to new product development and to continued growth.
In this case, I just don’t like IPOs. I think that Facebook is going to be a good stock to have in the long run, but I think there are still too many questions to be answered before your average person puts money into the stock.
One big question mark is, "What are they going to do about mobile?"
Since so many people use Facebook on their mobile devices, I know that there is an answer in there somewhere, but as an investor, you don’t want to just go on pure faith.
Another question to look for an answer to is, "How will Facebook handle being a public company?"
This isn’t so simple. I applaud Zuck for building the stock up in a way that allows him to maintain a tremendous amount of control. That being said, all of Facebook’s success has come because of Zuck’s relentless focus on control.
Now, what happens when their are public shareholders involved? That’s a big question and one that has tripped up lots of companies.
The third reason is that I just think IPOs end up screwing the company offering the stock and the initial investors. It seems like almost all IPOs get off to these huge starts. Look at Groupon, and people are tremendously excited to have shares of this company. Then, two weeks later, the shares are trading at 20% below the IPO price.
So, I’m not telling you don’t buy Facebook, but I am telling you to be smart.