Yadda, yadda, yadda, Zynga this Zynga that. You’ve probably heard every guy on Wall Street nag on the company. These so called “analysts” are not qualified to judge Zynga in my mind. First of all, they take a traditional approach to judging a company like Zynga, as if it were in the semiconductor space or financial sector. Zynga is in a totally different space. Then on the other hand, they’ll put all internet companies in the same boat. Zynga and Groupon are not the same kind of company. I don’t even consider Groupon to be a ‘tech’ company, it feels more like a sales company to me. So analysts need to stop putting every internet related company under the same umbrella.

Now that I’ve said my spiel on Wall St, let me get to the goods of this post. I feel Zynga will be worth $54 Billion or more in the future (a significant gain on their current $7.2B market cap). And for a very good reason: Online gambling, specifically online poker and mobile poker. Just think of how addicted the world is to online poker— even if you know nothing about playing poker, you know poker players love it. Now take those same people and give them an iPhone app, or Android app and let them play poker on their way to work on the subway. That gets even crazier, right?

Poker fans are no doubt die hard gamblers. And Zynga does well with fake poker. The rumors are that Zynga is scouting out a partnership with Wynn, one of the most well known gaming brands in Vegas. And no doubt, there is a lot of red tape and legality issues Zynga and their partner will have to work with. But honestly, what is the difference between someone gambling at a casino and at their house with their laptop? In my mind nothing. And in the minds of poker players —also nothing, except for the convenience. Now I’ve never played online poker, in fact I don’t even know how to play poker, but I know that the revenue stream this could create from taxes is HUGEE (that deserves two e’s).

We all know our economy is in the trenches, and in order to come out of it, we will have to allow innovation like this to create new revenue streams. Good things don’t last forever, so sometimes changes are a great thing. I mean you hear about immigration laws all day from Silicon Valley moguls, telling you the laws are driving innovation outside our country. Why are we letting these opportunities slip away? Because we won’t change. And even if Zynga can’t get things done fast in the US, then there is always the UK, where online gambling is legal. Zynga already has a huge audience they can leverage and an established brand name, so it could be highly disruptive. After all, Zynga is a global brand with offices in more than just Silicon Valley.

Now to the even better part, how do I think Zynga will be a $54B+ company? Simple. Casino brands like Las Vegas Sands ($42B), Wynn ($12B), and others are valued in the billions. These brands operate on business, for the most part, from guests being physically at the locations owned by the casino brands. There is no virtual gambling or anything like that. Now, given that not all of their revenue comes from gambling, but from dining, shows, rooms, etc- I do admit that their value is not solely based upon gambling. But in return Zynga reaches a larger audience when they implement gambling on the internet- everyone, everywhere it is legal (and I believe laws will tip in Zynga’s favor soon) because it will be a huge revenue stream for the government. So to conclude, I take into account the value of these resort enterprises, and feel Zynga will be valued at the combined value of two of the most valuable casino brands, if not more. We also have to take into account the value of their current business; casual gaming. It’s big and no doubt successful.

I don’t think the average stock market investor knows how to analyze Zynga (I’m talking about the guy who lives in Iowa that owns a small business, etc), so they have to make their investing decisions off of what the street analysts say. From that, they are only left to believe what they hear about Zynga, but frankly, the analysts can’t even see the vision—after all what the heck have they ever built? They are not builders, thinkers or entrepreneurs, for the most part they just comment on things they have no domain expertise to comment on.

Disclosure: This article is based upon my opinion. You should make your own decisions and opinions. In no way is this investment advice and I am NOT an investment professional.

Alright so, LinkedIn had its debut as a publicly traded company on Thursday. If you followed it- it exploded. My thoughts? It is absurd- now this is just my opinion, but I am going to say the stock will be worth way less than 1/2 what it is worth today, in 5 years worth of time. But that said, I think LinkedIn just played out the future for Facebook’s IPO and Twitter, if it plans to go public in the future also.

If you look at the earnings multiple and compare that to other companies, the other companies would be worth trillions. Hmmm….smells familiar. But back to Facebook and the future of social IPOs. In fact, I wouldn’t say just social IPOs, but everything related to social. Imagine Zynga having its IPO, etc. What LinkedIn did, Facebook will probably do with more noise, and quite possibly Twitter, too. The problem is that LinkedIn creates very little long term value (I feel). And the general population just doesn’t know that yet. However, a new startup BranchOut, will eat LinkedIn’s lunch, and dinner, and its fourthmeal.

Now that we’ve established that Facebook will have an even more jaw dropping debut on the public market, lets discuss how LinkedIn has a big problem.

BranchOut is basically LinkedIn ON Facebook. I should end my post here and just hit publish, but I’ll explain. People don’t want to be on 10 different services, that require remembering 10 different passwords, and connecting (finding) their contacts on those 10 networks over and over. Another problem is that some contacts are not on all 10 networks. BranchOut brings the LinkedIn features to Facebook (where the world *or at least 600 million people* lives). This makes it way too easy for people to career network on Facebook to even think about being on LinkedIn.

A lot of people might argue its good to keep social fun and social business apart from each other, but lets be honest, the world is becoming a more centralized place. We party with co-workers, and we work with friends. Others might think it will be questionable for BranchOut to build a layer on Facebook where it offers LinkedIn type functionality and the question that if BranchOut will be successful. But we can all learn a lesson from Zynga, whose supposedly valued in the billions, that building a layer on top of Facebook is possible, in a juggernaut way.

I could keep writing and express more opinions about this whole situation, but feel we should just keep it at that and watch what happens.

P.S. Congratulations to Reid and the team for such a successful exit!