Facebook WTF?

[jaydub]

[ QUOTE ]

If you are a college student

"I don't have a Facebook/MySpace account"

is the new

"I don't have a television"

[/ QUOTE ]

[NajdorfDefense]

[ QUOTE ]
As long as nobody points it out to the users, they won't know the difference. .... This new ad tech may even make FB worth the $4B they're asking for.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, that's the real question. It's hard for me to reach that valuation, and while I am doubtful they get it, there is still some dumb money left out there so you never know.

[NajdorfDefense]

[ QUOTE ]
ND,

"My realization that most internet firms would not be able to 'monetize eyeballs' led me to sell all my tech/media stocks in March of 2000. Lucky/smart I don't care either way."

You should have been optimistic that they could and stocked up in 2001-2002!!!!

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think 'most' firms survived that period. Besides, I put my money in my favorite [and yours?] sector:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?t=5y&s...s%2Cstn%2Cwynn

[NajdorfDefense]

[ QUOTE ]
ND,

It'll probably largely be based on collaborative filtering and network relationships and stuff, so I suspect you are very wrong....

Example: Instead of getting a "Chase College Credit Card" offer, one person gets a "College Football Branded Chase College Credit Card" offer and another gets an "American Idol Branded Chase College Credit Card." I think it will be very rare for people to react negatively to this sort of stuff ...

[/ QUOTE ]

ElD, seems you/others are 'very wrong' on this one:

'Facebook gave in to user complaints and agreed to end a program that broadcasts details of members' purchases. The service, called Beacon, gives advertisers details of what members buy, and users were automatically enrolled in the program.

The company will now guarantee that no info will be shared without consent from the user, according to a statement on facebook.com.

Facebook made the changes after more than 50,000 members signed petitions.'
www.bloomberg.com

Naj's view of unwashed public's response 1
OOTs biased view of public's response Nil

MC chris and many others totally pwned - yes.

I look forward to several responses about how this doesn't change the fact I was wrong and others were so SO right ZOMG you fool!111!!

[NajdorfDefense]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not getting the problem with this. This isn't more advertising, it's better advertising.

[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps you can start a petition drive and get 51k people to sign it to bring it back?!

[Riverman]

Isn't this the basic problem for social networking sites? To make lots of money they have to sell ads, and if they sell ads they will alienate their user base who will quickly migrate to a site with no ads?

[Fast Food Knight]

[ QUOTE ]
people will be pissed off and make a stink about the "privacy issue" (ad algorithms accessing their info), but no one will actually stop using facebook.

[/ QUOTE ]


Pretty much still true.


My company blocked facebook for several months. They recently unblocked it. My guess is so that they can screen potential candidates, but I don't know. But I'm pretty sure facebook isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

[Taylor Caby]

I actually don't mind this at all. Gmail does the same thing, and there are quite a few times I click on ads because I am curious and i almost never click ads anywhere else on the internet.

I hope facebook gives me some ads for products or stories that are of interest to me. The rest of the internet sure isn't doing a good job of that.

tc

[oe39]

does anyone else think this will lead to conspicuous consumption of items that people consider 'image-enhancing'? like, that people will start ordering pretentious books or nice clothing online so that it is 'seen' by the facebook community?

[NajdorfDefense]

[ QUOTE ]
Isn't this the basic problem for social networking sites? To make lots of money they have to sell ads, and if they sell ads they will alienate their user base who will quickly migrate to a site with no ads?

[/ QUOTE ]

For the most part, I agree. If you don't provide any content I don't see why people won't migrate away like they did from friendster and every other social site going back to Geocities and theglobe.com.

It's possible they'll hit some self-sustaining mass of people at some point, but I wouldn't risk $10bn on it.

Also this article Fri was interesting:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1196...iews_days_only
'Myspace for millionaires'