41–50 of 75 posts
The biggest problem with facebook, imo. All the lovers will come and razz Matt and this comment, but none of them will be able to provide any evidence that facebook is doing anything but spending capital.
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Because that's their market value based on recent investments.
I've never understood if the $15B valuation is real either (although I understand that it's quoted by everyone as being real). The original $15B number comes from an investment that Microsoft did for a share of the company plus advertising consideration. If you just valued the company on the share then it would be worth $15B but since there were other considerations you can't know at all what the valuation was. I've…
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Matt's not saying they aren't getting a lot of traffic, or that a lot of people don't enjoy using Facebook (nobody in their right mind would claim those things). Matt's saying that it's a rare form of chutzpah that Zuckerberg possesses that allows him to make up stuff like "the social graph" as justification for his second-place social network being worth 30 times the first-place social network (he's also saying some…
nice point - but myspace was a steal for fox and should be kicking themselves for selling so low. fb's valuation is mind boggling indeed and fb is not the next google - it does however have people excited about something besides the big G which is refreshing. chutzpa is making people believe, not telling the literal truth.
quick name the only company in the valley that scares googles mngt team? quick name the only company in the valley thats harvesting googlers like its October in Napa valley?
Doesn't mean Facebook is the next Google, though.
I'd be there if there were some there there.
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They can convince major brands to advertise there. The problem is, unlike traditional media ads, web based advertisers can quantify how much bang for their buck they are getting (click throughs, etc). Turns out that blanket, weakly-targeted advertising just doesn't perform that well, and companies get explicit feedback from these networks on just how bad the typical ad really is in terms of ROI.
Brand advertising (most of traditional media ads) isn't measured in click throughs, isn't any easier to measure on the web than elsewhere, and can't be dismissed without evidence.
If I run the same ad on tv or print, I have nowhere near the ability to accurately attribute any delta in sales activity to that specific ad run at that specific point in time.
The biggest problem with facebook, imo. All the lovers will come and razz Matt and this comment, but none of them will be able to provide any evidence that facebook is doing anything but spending capital.
how about growing users?..hmm thats seems like a valuable way to spend your time if your a consumer web company.
And volume is no substitute for probability if every "consumption" is at a loss. Sony can sell the PS3 at a loss because it makes money on the games and in the long run, wins. They can't sell the PS3 at a loss and sell the games at a loss, and make up for it with volume.
That's what facebook seems to be attempting. And they're not even winning the volume game.
I don't disagree with his main idea, but I really find it hard to believe that AIM and most cell phones are open platforms; though someone can prove me wrong.
I know of many apps not built by AOL that use AIM. Meebo, Trillian, Pidgin, Adium, etc. I don't think they meant it to be an open platform (until fairly recently) but it became one. I meant the phone system. Individual cell phones are not necessarily platforms.
Until Google Contacts API came out, I don't remember any major company giving third parties access to their users and their contacts officially. (ok Plaxo did but they had a condition that you couldn't make anything for profit) typically apps like Trillian got access when users gave them access to their own login information which is far from ideal and still not open by choice - more like 'broken into'
"I meant the phone system. Individual cell phones are not necessarily platforms."
the problem is, the social graph (contact info and call history) is contained and accessible from individual cell phones and not the phone system (unless again you trust some company to your login information for your cell phone web site account - still not open and a more dangerous than giving someone access your AIM login).
individual cell phones may not be platforms themselves, but the OS's they run on are...
One easy way for them to make money is to charge some nominal fee (say $15/yr) for premium services or ad-free experience. I don't use facebook myself, but most of my friends do, and most of them would gladly pay a small fee to just keep using facebook as is, nevermind premium features. Mining the social graph is the holy grail of social networks, but facebook, with its millions of addicted users, doesn't have to sol…
The product acquires value to users as they use it. Giving it away for free at the beginning and as long as possible while it is manageable to do so is fine and advisable. However, in the long run there is nothing wrong or overly difficult in charging your users a little bit. 37signals is a good example of something similar to this.