The problems in this space are based on attention ( time on site/ interactions), interest (consumer segmentation/focus), and intent (willingness to make a purchase).
The problem of most ad based apps is that they trade attention for interest and purchase intent. The problem with facebook is that it's so good at getting your attention that you rarely visit facebook with the interest or intent of buying something.
The core difference of google and facebook is that when you go to facebook, you are engaged with your friends and are in a lean back mindset, while with google you are actively pursuing interest in something.
I think VCs should actually come up with standard KPIs around interest and intent than saying lame things like X number of users is worth $y amount. It would be much smarter to say things like, a user with a KPI of K is worth $Z this year, and $Q over a lifetime.
A Dropbox, and Apple user looks much different than a Facebook user.
That's a good perspective. Monetization would thus depend on whether attention & intent are aligned - true in the case of Google search but not so with FB & Twitter.
with hash tags and with twitter search it might be. even pinterest is having trouble with intent. At 10 million users it's also likely you have KPIs vs. some sites at 1million might not have anything more sophisticated than unique IPs/ logged in users.
The problem of most ad based apps is that they trade attention for interest and purchase intent. The problem with facebook is that it's so good at getting your attention that you rarely visit facebook with the interest or intent of buying something.
The core difference of google and facebook is that when you go to facebook, you are engaged with your friends and are in a lean back mindset, while with google you are actively pursuing interest in something.
I think VCs should actually come up with standard KPIs around interest and intent than saying lame things like X number of users is worth $y amount. It would be much smarter to say things like, a user with a KPI of K is worth $Z this year, and $Q over a lifetime.
A Dropbox, and Apple user looks much different than a Facebook user.