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All good points. The next step — pay a billion dollars for a company with lots of users and no business model — is still not leaping out at me though. It seems

All good points. The next step — pay a billion dollars for a company with lots of users and no business model — is still not leaping out at me though. It seems to me that, say, three years ago building an absolutely kickass mobile client, or just iPhone client, should have been a major priority (versus, say, randomly thrashing the timeline interface over and over).

sp332 15y ago
Paying for lots of engaged, loyal, and happy users is a very different thing from paying for eyeballs.
- malandrew 15y ago
  I think paying for eyeballs is a stupid strategy as well that undervalues the network of users dramatically. Advertising is largely the art of throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks. Yeah, with a lot of tools and the information Facebook has about their users, we can perfect the art of how to make shit stick. This is the classic failure of big media: treating your users like an audience (eyeballs). Facebook understands its users interactions, designs around them and is doing brilliantly at keeping them engaged, then they bring in people from the advertising world and treat them like an audience. They should be monetizing the edges, not the nodes.
- debacle 15y ago
  Users are anything but loyal. Mobile users have a bit better loyalty than web users, but lets face it - it's a free service with very little strings attached, and all of the lock-in that Facebook has tried to create has just frustrated users.
- ZanderEarth32 15y ago
  I think the question of if the users are loyal is still up in the air. Facebook hasn't been around long enough on this massive scale to prove if the users are loyal. I personally don't think it's user base is loyal. The younger, more tech-savy generation on FB will jump ship as soon as something better comes along like some were doing already to Instagram or Twitter. The older generation might not necessarily be loyal to FB either, they are just too scared to move, or don't have the ability.
droithomme 15y ago
> versus, say, randomly thrashing the timeline interface over and over Hey don't knock timeline! It's incredibly valuable for discovering that the two most important times in most people's lives are the year they were born and the year they joined Facebook.

sp332 15y ago

Paying for lots of engaged, loyal, and happy users is a very different thing from paying for eyeballs.

malandrew 15y ago
I think paying for eyeballs is a stupid strategy as well that undervalues the network of users dramatically. Advertising is largely the art of throwing shit at a wall and seeing what sticks. Yeah, with a lot of tools and the information Facebook has about their users, we can perfect the art of how to make shit stick. This is the classic failure of big media: treating your users like an audience (eyeballs). Facebook understands its users interactions, designs around them and is doing brilliantly at keeping them engaged, then they bring in people from the advertising world and treat them like an audience. They should be monetizing the edges, not the nodes.
debacle 15y ago
Users are anything but loyal. Mobile users have a bit better loyalty than web users, but lets face it - it's a free service with very little strings attached, and all of the lock-in that Facebook has tried to create has just frustrated users.
ZanderEarth32 15y ago
I think the question of if the users are loyal is still up in the air. Facebook hasn't been around long enough on this massive scale to prove if the users are loyal. I personally don't think it's user base is loyal. The younger, more tech-savy generation on FB will jump ship as soon as something better comes along like some were doing already to Instagram or Twitter. The older generation might not necessarily be loyal to FB either, they are just too scared to move, or don't have the ability.

droithomme 15y ago

> versus, say, randomly thrashing the timeline interface over and over Hey don't knock timeline! It's incredibly valuable for discovering that the two most important times in most people's lives are the year they were born and the year they joined Facebook.