Biz media more favorable toward Facebook than Google

Howard Gold writes Friday on Marketwatch.com that the business media has written more favorably about Facebook during its initial public offering than it did when Google went public.

Gold writes, “And after reviewing many articles, I was surprised to find the tone fairly positive. Sure, writers have raised questions about Facebook’s valuation, its ability to grow revenues and its capacity to compete in mobile computing, among other things.

“But almost every piece I read acknowledged the company’s huge success and its dominant position in social networks. And the coverage of Facebook’s founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been overwhelmingly favorable, if not fawning, with only a couple of snickers about his wearing a hoodie to the company’s New York IPO road show meeting.

“Why was I so surprised? Because I also read dozens of articles about the last great Internet IPO, that of Googlein August 2004. And the contrast couldn’t have been more striking.

“The financial media’s take on Google’s IPO was unremittingly negative. I estimate 98% of the articles trashed the company, the whole unconventional Dutch auction IPO process, even its co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page. Writers were openly contemptuous of Google’s prospects and warned investors explicitly not to buy.”

Read more here.