Dan Lyons has a post over on ReadWrite facilitating a classic Mark Cuban rant. Cuban is pissed about the Facebook Promote fees for the Dallas Mavericks Facebook page – he was asked for $3,000 to reach 1 million people who’ve already Liked the page.
As an aside, I checked the promote fees on my own FB account. It’s a flat $50 and I have 350,000 subscribers. I promoted a test post – I like how it shows me how many paid (100%) v. unpaid (0%) views I have so far. Since Facebook is in control of both types of views it isn’t all that meaningful. Still, I wouldn’t feel like such a chump if I saw at least a few unpaid views. Cuban’s right, this has the appearance of shady.
Anywho, the part of the article that caught my eye was when Cuban told Lyons that he’s never bought Facebook stock. He says:
I Wouldn’t Buy Facebook Stock
“I haven’t bought and I wouldn’t buy here. I think they have to determine what their business is right now and how they will make money at it. I don’t believe they are clear about either.”
Which is weird because Cuban wrote about how he bought Facebook stock earlier this year after the IPO. Specifically he says “I bought and sold FB shares.”
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What I’m wondering is if Lyons got the quote wrong. Cuban doesn’t actually say he wouldn’t buy Facebook stock, he just says “I haven’t bought and…” and Lyons put that bold header on top of the quote saying “I Wouldn’t Buy Facebook Stock.” Maybe Cuban was saying he hasn’t bought a promoted post.
Sloppy.
Disclosure: I personally own Facebook stock, and CrunchFund has shares in Facebook. See my full disclosure schedule here.
Update: Cuban clarifies in the comments below: “actually, it was in reference that I haven’t bought since my one round trip trade and I don’t currently own it.”
