在这一波互联网热潮中，易手的资金远远少于上一次热潮。这是件好事。但Twitter售股却凸显出一个迹象，那就是眼下估值的豪气与上一轮热潮时相比丝毫不逊色——而很快会出现大规模的现金浪费。
Twitter的新一轮融资筹得2亿美元，使得整个公司的估值达到37亿美元，巩固了Twitter作为互联网宠儿的地位。过去一年，该网站一直在尝试找到方法，将使用其免费微博服务（以140个字符的简短篇幅发“推”）的数目庞大且增长迅速的用户群，转变为能够带来丰厚收入的业务。现在，早期曾支持过谷歌(Google)和亚马逊(Amazon)的风险投资家约翰•多尔(John Doerr)，加入了Twitter投资者的行列。
不过Twitter仍未实现盈利。估值如此之高的一个理由可能是，有机会出现收购大战。但多尔的参与肯定会降低与谷歌在短期内洽购Twitter的可能性，而谷歌是人们最经常与Twitter联系在一起的公司之一。多尔作为谷歌的董事，董事会层面对潜在收购目标展开的任何讨论，他都应当知情。
然而，谷歌对推高其他初创企业估值罪不可卸——就在最近，它曾试图以60亿美元收购Groupon，不过遭到了拒绝。如果成功，Groupon将成为自1999年思科(Cisco)以69亿美元收购Cerent以来，有风险投资入股的企业中，卖价最高的一家。虽然Groupon在线处理本地广告的方式与谷歌很契合，但该公司的业务模式很容易被复制。
Groupon的吸引力主要在于它能对Facebook构成挑战，而Facebook可谓“不透明估值之王”。周三，二级市场的股票交易可能使得Facebook的估值超过之前的390亿美元，但不论买方还是卖方都无法了解其财务状况。盲目引导着盲目高歌猛进。
Lex专栏是由FT评论家联合撰写的短评，对全球经济与商业进行精辟分析
译者/何黎
http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001036088
Much less money is changing hands in the current dotcom boom than in the last one. That is good. But the sale of equity in Twitter is a sign that valuations are no less heroic – and that cash will soon be wasted on a vast scale.
The new round of fundraising – $200m of cash, valuing the whole company at a putative $3.7bn – bolstered Twitter’s status as internet darling. The site has spent the past year trying to figure out how to convert trying to turn the large and rapidly growing userbase of its free microblogging service (tweeting in 140 character snippets) into a substantial revenue-generating business. It will now have venture capitalist John Doerr – who backed both Google and Amazon early on – on the investor roster.
Yet Twitter is still not profitable. One way to justify such a valuation might be the chance of a takeover battle. But Mr Doerr’s involvement surely reduces the likelihood of an approach in the near term from Google, one of the companies most often linked with Twitter. As a Google director, he will have been privy to any board-level discussions on potential takeover targets.
Google is guilty though of pushing up valuations for other start-ups, most recently in its rebuffed $6bn approach to Groupon, which would have been the largest sale of a venture capital-backed business since 1999 (when Cisco paid $6.9bn for Cerent). While the company’s approach to local advertising online would sit well within Google, Groupon’s business model is easily replicated.
Groupon’s attraction is largely as a challenger to Facebook, king of the opaque valuations. A secondary market sale of shares on Wednesday seemed likely to top the previous $39bn valuation, but neither buyers nor sellers have access to the financials. The blind lead the blind onwards and upwards.
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