
Forget Revenue. Relevance Is The New Currency. - zeedotme
http://thenextweb.com/entrepreneur/2010/10/03/forget-revenue-relevance-is-the-new-currency/
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swombat
It's worth pointing out that all those discussions about what is the new
currency or what not are only even remotely possible in the very advanced,
almost-post-scarcity economies that we live in.

If the global economy collapses or a world war erupts, for example, hackers,
bankers, public speakers, and other intellectuals like us, may find that the
_real_ currency becomes the ability to grow vegetables on a piece of land. Cue
virtuoso pianists exchanging their £10k Steinberg concert grand piano for a
sack of potatoes.

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notahacker
It won't need a global collapse for all but a tiny handful of startups that
consider revenue irrelevant to run out of funding before turning a profit.
"Relevance" is only a means to currency, whether it's coming from your user
base or the perceived future value of your user base.

There are worse things than being an "irrelevant" behemoth that generates wads
of cash and uses it to buy more innovative companies that don't too.

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sjs382
Okay, you can have the relevancy while I take the revenue...

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BorisBomega
Thanks. :-)

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henning
I could help you forget revenue by taking all your money. That would free you
up to focus on being relevant, which is what really matters. Deal?

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MChrisP1
I absolutely agree. There will be a bigger better thing than Facebook at some
point. There is always something bigger and better. Facebook will represent a
major plateau in social technology, no doubt about it. Facebook changed the
social landscape of over 500 million people and counting.

Remember however that relevance is increasingly driven by the user's want of
instant, here and now, access to information. Location sharing, augmented
reality,RFID, Qr codes, and mobile social games are all very new and exciting.
Add to that the ultracool mobile hardware out there from Androids to iPhones
and the tee tablet market and I see unlimited possibilities here! It's
exciting! There is so much possibility when you look at all of those
variables, I can't believe that there wont be newer and shinier platform that
catches us by storm! 5 years from today I'm sure we'll know the Facebook
killers name...we may already know it.

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tjic
The great thing about the Old Currency is that I can spend it to buy things I
want: food, clothes, books.

Until the New Currency can do that, I think I'll stick with the Old Currency.

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BorisBomega
You obviously haven't read the post.

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joey_bananas
This sounds a lot like those "new economy" screeds in Wired back in the dotcom
days.

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edw519
Forget Gravity. Lift Is The New Currency.

Why should we forget fundamentals just because the models are constantly
changing?

Just like an airplane can defy gravity for a while, so can a business without
revenue. But sooner or later, both must return to earth.

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ronin358
Out of curiosity, did you actually read the article, or did you just comment
on the title?

The article used facebook, which already has about $800m in revenue, as a
starting point to discuss a major factor of success for social media. He had a
good point.

edit/ In fact, his point could be applied very well to the recent Digg fiasco.
If they had ranked "relevance to users" as high as "revenue maximization" then
they may not have lost so many users.

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kevin_morrill
Do you know how much of that $800 million is recurring income? They have >$100
million deals with both Google and Microsoft separately. From what I've heard
their popularity with advertisers, their actual paying customer, is in the
tank. They are also one of the costliest websites in the world to run.

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waterlesscloud
Enough that they're telling people they're going to hit $2 Billion in revenue
this year.

[http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/facebook-will-
hit-2-billion...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/facebook-will-
hit-2-billion-2010-revenue-says-mob-of-unofficial-facebook-spokespersons/)

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elblanco
I think I'll start paying my employees with "relevance checks" instead of real
money...if they argue with me I'll just tell them "forget money! just be more
relevant!"

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gaius
I remember back in the 90s when they said "content is king".

Cash is king, always was, always will be. Otherwise it's not _business_.

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jacquesm
If I had focused on 'relevance' or 'eyeballs' in stead of on 'turnover' and
'profits' I would have been out of business long ago.

Unless you are very well connected and have a clear exit route in sight please
_don't_ forget revenue.

And nobody says you can't have both relevance _and_ revenue, it's not like
they're opposites.

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johannchiang
It is probably true for platform companies, but in the end cash still rules.
With respect, I think Facebook and Tencent are the only few "egoless" big
players trying to stay relevant in the paranoid way. They will not give any
chance to any threat in their game by copying ideas from startups fast. They
know their games.

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JunkDNA
Yeah, funny thing is that my bank won't let me pay my mortgage or credit card
bills with "relevance".

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ajg1977
Summary: "Companies such as Facebook should worry more about staying relevant
than making a profit".

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MChrisP1
Customers=Currency So by proxy, anything that attracts the customer is
currency. What attracts the customer is what us relevant to the user.

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kristaps
To me it sounds a bit like "the old rules don't apply."

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zeedotme
i can't believe this post got buried.

