I want to pay for Facebook
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I want to pay for Facebook
1–10 of 11 posts
Re: I want to pay for Facebook
#2I personally think that Microsoft should either buy or merge with Facebook, wipe the slate clean, redesign it Metro UI style, and charge for it. No ads, just a better overall service. I wouldn't hate Facebook so much if it were actually fun to use.
Re: I want to pay for Facebook
#3I personally think that Microsoft should either buy or merge with Facebook, wipe the slate clean, redesign it Metro UI style, and charge for it. No ads, just a better overall service. I wouldn't hate Facebook so much if it were actually fun to use.
Something similar to this would be nice. http://www.theverge.com/2012/3/30/2883925/an-alternate-windo...
Re: I want to pay for Facebook
#4I personally think that Microsoft should either buy or merge with Facebook, wipe the slate clean, redesign it Metro UI style, and charge for it. No ads, just a better overall service. I wouldn't hate Facebook so much if it were actually fun to use.
Not sure about a Microsoft involvement.
Either way, I feel they will always have a conflicted product vision so long as their users and customers are separate entities. Imagine a feature that's brilliant for the user, but terrible for advertisers? Well, hard luck, it's off limits. It's strange that one party is using and another is paying. It profoundly limits the scope of the product.
Re: I want to pay for Facebook
#5Alas, experience suggests that most people don't value social networks enough to pay for them. Moreover, once a social network has locked in a user and their circle of friends, it's easy to discount their utility as a customer (they're locked in: where are they going to go?) and try to monetize them in other ways.
(Historical example: Livejournal.)
Re: I want to pay for Facebook
#6I personally think that Microsoft should either buy or merge with Facebook, wipe the slate clean, redesign it Metro UI style, and charge for it. No ads, just a better overall service. I wouldn't hate Facebook so much if it were actually fun to use.
Not sure about a Microsoft involvement. Either way, I feel they will always have a conflicted product vision so long as their users and customers are separate entities. Imagine a feature that's brilliant for the user, but terrible for advertisers? Well, hard luck, it's off limits. It's strange that one party is using and another is paying. It profoundly limits the scope of the product.
Well if any major tech company would go after them it would be Microsoft. Facebook's integration in Bing, Microsoft buying Skype then integrating it with Facebook, etc.
I agree though. The first thing to do would be to get rid of the advertisers and charge for it.
Re: I want to pay for Facebook
#7Alas, experience suggests that most people don't value social networks enough to pay for them. Moreover, once a social network has locked in a user and their circle of friends, it's easy to discount their utility as a customer (they're locked in: where are they going to go?) and try to monetize them in other ways. (Historical example: Livejournal.)
But I think examples like Sparrow (Mail app) represent the idea that if you make it obvious that it's worth paying for, people will do it.
Maybe if they had a freemium system. It starts off free but if you want no ads and more features you pay $X/month. A user could lobby friends to make the jump to the paid version.
Re: I want to pay for Facebook
#8I personally think that Microsoft should either buy or merge with Facebook, wipe the slate clean, redesign it Metro UI style, and charge for it. No ads, just a better overall service. I wouldn't hate Facebook so much if it were actually fun to use.
Microsoft Research has so.cl (that's the URL), which integrates with Facebook and adds some "social search" and video chat features. It's not competing, just experimenting with different functionality.
Re: I want to pay for Facebook
#9I personally think that Microsoft should either buy or merge with Facebook, wipe the slate clean, redesign it Metro UI style, and charge for it. No ads, just a better overall service. I wouldn't hate Facebook so much if it were actually fun to use.
Microsoft Research has so.cl (that's the URL), which integrates with Facebook and adds some "social search" and video chat features. It's not competing, just experimenting with different functionality.
Well Microsoft-Facebook makes sense from a competitive standpoint with Apple-Twitter.
Re: I want to pay for Facebook
#10Alas, experience suggests that most people don't value social networks enough to pay for them. Moreover, once a social network has locked in a user and their circle of friends, it's easy to discount their utility as a customer (they're locked in: where are they going to go?) and try to monetize them in other ways. (Historical example: Livejournal.)
But I think examples like Sparrow (Mail app) represent the idea that if you make it obvious that it's worth paying for, people will do it. Maybe if they had a freemium system. It starts off free but if you want no ads and more features you pay $X/month. A user could lobby friends to make the jump to the paid version.
You just described LJ's model. It didn't work well (outside of Russia).