I think Zynga will be a very hard stock for wall street to understand for some time. Since it's revenue is so tied to usage (meaning unpredictable after hockey stick growth flattens) and since usage is so tied to external factors (e.g., Facebook Open Graph changes), I think it will be a very difficult company to forecast. In general, it's tough to be a public company if you can't have some predictability to your financial results.
I don't think the two points you make: tied to usage and external factors, equate to difficult forecasts. Look at airlines, they are definitely tied to usage, empty planes and bad routes impact revenues; and external factors come into play with things like fuel costs and union negotiations (at least in the US). The things you list as making them a "hard stock for wall street to understand" are actually what make the sharks see right through zynga's value proposition/bullshit.
Thanks for the response and I think I probably should have been clearer. Zynga is fundamentally tied (today) to factors outside of its control (like airlines) but that are (a) controlled largely by one entity (facebook) and (b) opaque to the outside world. By comparison, airlines are tied to factors (GDP, fuel cost, etc.) that are not controlled by any single entity and that are more transparent (e.g., real-time markets for fuel, widely available forecasts for GDP). Regardless, I wasn't defending the stock - on the contrary I was saying this is going to be a very tough public company in general.
