Facebook reveals revenue, profit slide ahead of IPO

(Reuters) - Facebook Inc reported its first quarter-to-quarter revenue slide in at least two years, a sign that the social network's sizzling growth may be cooling as it prepares to go public in the biggest ever Internet IPO.

The company blamed the first-quarter decline, which surprised some on Wall Street, on seasonal advertising trends.

"It was a faster slowdown than we would have guessed," said Brian Wieser, an analyst with Pivotal Research Group.

"No matter how you slice it, for a company that is perceived as growing so rapidly, to slow so much on whatever basis - sequentially or annually - it will be somewhat concerning to investors if faced with a lofty valuation," Wieser said.

Former MySpace Exec: Facebook Must Avoid These 3 Mistakes

By Julie Bort | Business Insider

MySpace was the social network before Facebook, just like Yahoo was the search engine before Google.

Ex-COO Amit Kapur joined MySpace when it was just a startup, stayed until after it was bought by News Corp for $580 million in 2005, then moved on.

Since 2009, he's worked on his new startup, Gravity. Gravity helps websites like the Wall Street Journal match content with visitor's interest.

Kapur understands the threats to Facebook as it goes public. He talked with Business Insider about the lessons he learned from MySpace and shared this advice for Facebook: