
Why Facebook Will Have a Big 2009 - astrec
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/01/08/why-facebook-will-have-a-big-2009/
======
mdasen
Why blank will blank in 2009. The blank of 2008.

Great time of year - when you can make absurd statements that no one
remembers. So, I guess I'll join in on the fun.

1\. Facebook continues to loose money at a rate that makes the government
(really any government) look good. They quickly burn through their cash and
raise more cash and then raise some more. Their growth is phenomenal, but it
becomes apparent that they aren't quite able to monetize.

2\. Facebook tries a bold new strategy of invasive advertising. Lots of
analysis of all sorts of things that piss off users.

3\. Alternative services create an interoperable system that doesn't suck.
Users are able to create friend relationships across domains. All of a sudden,
social-network lock-in crumbles.

I think that last one is the coolest thought. There are things stopping an
open network from working:

1\. Logins. OpenID is poorly implemented - it should work like email. Put in
your email address, get the format of the OpenID url by checking the domain
part and then put the username together in the format specified by the site
for login. Profit! Most banks already have a two screen authentication (first
just username, then just password) so it's not so outrageous to think users
won't accept that.

2\. Friends. There needs to be a cross-service friend system. This isn't so
hard to implement. We already have a unique ID (the OpenID/Email). So, now we
can say, bill@microsoft.com is friends with steve@apple.com even if only steve
has signed up for the service because we import the bill email address as an
ID to the service when we sign-up/sync. Now, that's a SPAM haven. So, why not
hash the first part. So, bill becomes xc78901@microsoft.com as the ID and when
bill@microsoft.com signs up, we hash it to see the ID and realise that he's
already friends with others using the service. Cool! That way, we can take our
friend network with us to whatever service and have it sync up easily.

~~~
siong1987
Prediction 4: In the end of 2010, Facebook loses too much money and no VC
wants to back them anymore. They have more than 20,000 workers. Finally, they
need bailout from the government.

This prediction is made on the previous 3 predictions made by mdasen.

------
sam_in_nyc
Facebook Connect will make or break the company.

If I can share what I do on other sites with my friends on Facebook
(presumably people I know and/or care about), that's a value gain for both me
and anyone adopting this, because I'm likely to use these other sites more
often.

If, on the other hand, Facebook Connect isn't well adopted or it's a miserable
experience, the Facebook really is just one locked in social network, and
someone will come along and connect my profile across all websites. Someone
other than OpenID which is the most annoying login system devised.

How is Facebook not already able to sell marketing information? Nobody wants
to know which bands are suddenly becoming more popular (and where)? Or which
movies are being looked forward to by which people?

~~~
eli_s
Monetization will make or break Facebook. If they can pay investors back along
with a healthy margin and continue to bring in revenue then they will stay.

Personally I don't think there is enough advertising money available
regardless of economic conditions to keep this behemoth afloat. I'd love to
know what alternatives those clever FB MBAs are cooking up.

How will FB Connect help pay the bills?

~~~
sam_in_nyc
An acquisition could pay back investors as well, unless you think nobody would
dare buy a nonprofitable company. But I do think there's some credence to
this; they are huge and the economy has sunk quite a bit since their famed
$15b valuation.

Still, you don't think they could sell for $2b right now?

My point about Facebook Connect is that it's the one thing that can "lock them
in" as _the_ social network of the internet... the place where everyone has
their _real_ profile and shares what they _really_ do on other websites. If
leaving facebook means screwing my account on 10 other sites on I use, then
I'm not going to leave, even if you do slam ads down my throat.

How to monetize. Well, if I was a website using facebook connect, which we
have to assume they'll be thousands, I'd surely pay facebook to serve up
meaningful ads that use information I've sent them: eg: "4 of your friends
recently visited Hackernews"

Another thing which I haven't seen a good implementation of is showing off
what people buy. If I bought something online I wouldn't be against sharing it
with my friends if, for example, it was a cool product or on sale. Facebook
could make money from that. With FBconnect, services might start doing this,
and facebook can get a piece of the action for showing news feed items that
boost sales.

By the way, are Facebook's numbers even public? How do you know they're losing
money?

~~~
eli_s
"By the way, are Facebook's numbers even public? How do you know they're
losing money?" -

[http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/07/technology/hempel_threepoint...](http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/07/technology/hempel_threepointo.fortune/index.htm)

"[FB] Revenues for 2008 are expected to be about $275 million this year,
according to several sources, and it is still not profitable."

it's common knowledge that none of the recent major "web2.0" players have made
any or significant profits.

------
patio11
Facebook will have a big 2009 because there is no time to have a business
model based on not-charging poor college students like during the middle of
the worst recession since the Great Depression.

------
markessien
OpenID died last year. Anyone still hoping that OpenID will gain any traction
is hopelessly shortsighted.

Facebook will make money, that is the least problem. Facebook connect is going
to evolve to merge with MySpace, WindowsLive, StudiVZ, Xiaonei identities.
People no longer identify themselves by their email addresses, they do so by
their social networking account, and he's right there.

And people don't like changing their social network, they are too entrenched.
Americans like to think that Facebook is so dominant, but lots of people like
Hi5 and cannot imagine using anything else, because their friends are all
there.

There will come a system where people can sign-in anywhere using their
personal page. But such systems come slowly because of all the competing
interests each pulling another way.

~~~
decadentcactus
If the least problem Facebook has is to make money, then why haven't they done
it now? Don't you think it might be smart to get that little item checked off
their list sooner rather than later?

~~~
markessien
Because to make money, people need to pay, and when people need to pay, growth
slows. Their focus is on growth for the moment, and for that they need to
spend.

It's like playing monopoly - at the beginning of the game you concentrate on
buying as many properties as you can, because you know later they will bring
you profits. If you immediately start building when you have just 3 cards,
then you will earn money right at the start, but you will suffer later.

Facebook can sell itself at any time it wants to. Money is not the issue.

------
nx
So Facebook is the new Gmail? Gmail has a lot of power and they don't seem to
have done anything bad, so far. It's the users who decide to give all this
information to a site, and there is nothing we can do besides trusting them.
Well, it's what the Internet is about: a lot of benefits, a lot of
vulnerabilities. The cool site everybody signs up on can be Facebook, Google
or whichever, but things are not going to change for some time.

------
asnyder
I really hope he's wrong. This is pretty scary stuff, to me anyway. The last
company I would want to have all this power is facebook.

------
eli_s
One day facebook will have to work out the monetization issue. They have
accepted _loads_ of investor money, and all those investors will one day
expect a very healthy return.

I think their success in getting more investment money comes from the mindset
that something this big can't fail.

I'm really curious to see if they come up with a working solution.

------
volida
get a life

