Whenever we talk about Facebook and the numbers relating to the most popular social network founded by Mark Zuckerberg, we always end up being surprised and puzzled by those figures.

Recently, General Atlantic, one of the largest capital investment in the world, has reportedly purchased a block of shares of the company in Palo Alto for a total of $2.5 million.

The investment represents a share of 0.1% of the total value of Facebook, which was estimated by General Atlantic at about $65 billion, some $15 billion more than the $50 billion indicated by Goldman Sachs.

What’s most striking is the constant relaunch of increasingly higher numbers, which revolves around the value of Facebook. Just a few days ago I published this post I suggest you to read: Facebook, Twitter and the new Internet bubble. Facebook does not create or sell services. It is a platform made of 500 million users who exchange information in a relational network deployed globally. Its value grows, on a purely nominal level, month after month at a frenetic and unjustified pace.

Large investors have sensed the deal, be it real or fake. The trend today is to invest, invest, invest. It is a reckless and dangerous tendency that has inflated the financial speculation based on the “virtual economy” out of proportion.

Investors are not business angels. Money and heaven never go hand in hand. Those who put the capital demand a substantial return on investment within a few years. Exit strategies are not mere stylistic exercises aimed at filling a business plan. The trend will become sell, sell, sell, here and now. It will be then that the foundation behind this evanescent castle made of bytes will start to creak dangerously.

$65 billion is comparable to a small financial maneuver of an entire country. One wonders if, behind his unquestioned popularity, Facebook really is worth all that money.

This announcement was made several days ago and it was jaw-dropping because of the numbers it contained. As reported by The Wall Street Journal, JP Morgan declared it would invest an amount between $500 to $750 million in a fund for Internet and digital-media companies including Facebook and Twitter.

These are impressive figures that inevitably lead us to consider the distorted perception of the value of the companies involved in the Internet economy (for the sake of comparison, the cost of a Shuttle mission is usually around $450 million).

Internet companies like Facebook and Twitter are nothing more than information sharing platforms. They do not provide value added services nor provide products that create wealth directly. So far, the main indicator of their monetary value is the number of users and their geographical distribution on the globe.

It is realistic to expect that the growth rate of the most popular social networks will see a substantial braking within the next two years, reaching a “physiological” saturation. Their population will tend to settle around a limit value and, in the absence of any other significant lever, reduced growth in terms of users will be perceived by investors as a factor of recession.

Facebook, Twitter and generally any Internet company survive mainly through a business model based on advertising revenues. It always works but it is also extremely weak when the market falters. The Internet companies don’t have levers (such as launching a new product) to influence the market, but they passively suffer from periodic cycles of booms and halts. Often they are climbing fast only to fall violently.

From what we see in the figures it feels like we are experiencing the same mass hysteria that characterized the boom of the Internet companies of the late nineties. Soon thereafter the bubble of the dot com economy exploded with a deafening roar.

Apparently, history does not teach us anything.