Forum Moderators: rogerd
Facebook will likely be posting billions of dollars in revenue in five years, up from about $500 million this year, according to Silicon Valley entrepreneur Mark Andreessen who sits on Facebook's board.Andreessen told Reuters that the world's most popular online social network could pile up $1 billion in revenue this year if it pushed harder on selling advertising.
But he added that it was more important at this stage for social sites like Facebook and Twitter to retain and grow their user base and capture market share, rather than worry too much about making lots of money right away.
I hate facefook, my wife loves it, so I'm neutral.
Funniest (and deepest) truth to come out of this thread.
This "walled garden" approach, especially the keeping of your photos, makes them win customers now, but will cause severe burn in the future. Someone remembers AOL?
[edited by: Hugene at 8:12 pm (utc) on July 8, 2009]
If current revenue is $500 million, surely "billions" isn't that big of a stretch considering their growth and user retention rates.
I don't know much about facebook, but mathematically zero and a billion are equal distances from $500 million, though I'm guessing the zero end is a lot easier to get to.
This means that all facebook ads will be the kind that you don't want to click, the fluff etc.
Admittedly its not much, but then I only set my daily budget at $1.00. (cost their cost per click is too high)
The reason most of you do not rate Facebook Ads is that they do not have the Google Adsense feature. Where you can make money just by showing other peoples ads.
I am a manufacturer and am therefore not into quick money making schemes like that. I just need to sell products and Facebook is great for that as it shows a pic of your product.
Reality will set in, MASS TRAFFIC NOW sounds great but doesn't deliver as well as targeted traffic can. I highly doubt anyone will ever say to themselves "Hmm, I think I want to buy some new skates, I'd better go check out the facebook ads".
No but have you not heard of impulse buying ? Someone may be writing to some of their friends on Facebook and see one ad for some nice shiny new skates and say "Oh I need some new skates I'll check this add out !"
I have heard of impulse buying, who hasn't.
Impulse buying can be a powerful thing but ad blindness on social sites, where people go to do things besides research or buy an item/service, is staggering (hence expensive for advertisers who need conversions).
Someone using a search engine and landing on my webpage for their exact search term is much more likely to buy the item I'm writing about or selling. The difference is night and day.
There are two ways to go.
#1 - get mass traffic and try to monetize it
#2 - get highly converting pages that do not require mass traffic to turn a profit.
#1 is over-rated according to the tax documents of companies like Facebook and Youtube and unless I missed it the OP said nothing about solving the problem. I don't buy into predictions.
