We live in the age of wonders. The internet and mobile devices create endless possibilities for people to communicate, learn and interact. And at Facebook, a company which can, if it chooses, pick from among the brightest engineering minds and focus their efforts on any problem it chooses, the power to concentrate years of programming knowledge on the capabilities afforded to us by this astonishing bounty of personal…
They'll collect the location information, your circle of friends, etc. and enrich your profile (what they know about you). That helps them monetize better.
FB is an ad network, basically (or will become one). They have data on ~1B users, and the value of this data goes up with the amount of interaction there is between users.
Outside of Search, ads monetize pretty badly (what are Display ad CPMs now.. $0.50? ). That's because of extremely low engagement. The more data FB has about you, the more engaging ad it can pick for you; and thus they can charge a lot more.
So this product by itself doesn't have to monetize at all, as long as the net effect of this product is higher value for FB.