6 ms·

But I think, its now going to be all the more tough for them to figure out how to improve their ARPU dramatically, as they don't have the benefit of obscurity.

by rehack 14y ago

But I think, its now going to be all the more tough for them to figure out how to improve their ARPU dramatically, as they don't have the benefit of obscurity. For example, even slight change to the feeds, like inserting what vaguely seems like an Ad, raises a huge uproar from people. In contrast Google had got Adwords figured out (but it was not as widely known) before their IPO.

9oliYQjP 14y ago
Changes to Facebook are like fluctuations in gas prices though. People grumble and complain, then just go ahead and don't change their habit. I'm pretty conspiracy-theorish on the whole Facebook thing. A part of me wants to believe Mark managed to hack the entire system. He got the maximum amount of money out of the IPO to build up a huge cash reserve for his company. He made his big acquisition before the IPO; future acquisitions may be harder now that the share price is what it is. But he has also sent a shock wave through the entire eco-system. If things cool off a bit, he'll be able to find more talent to work at Facebook at more reasonable prices. He won't have current employees looking to run off and start a bubbly startup. It just seems like a brilliant hack :) I'm probably reading far too much into the whole situation. During this cooling off period, Facebook can disregard their short term share price and experiment wildly until they figure out something that works. There's not an investor alive who thinks there's anybody more capable than Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook CEO. Nobody will oust him in the short- to medium-term. Facebook is a very much in the same position that Amazon.com was in around 2001. They have the means to figure this out. Other startups trying to follow suit don't have this luxury any more. But Facebook sure does. EDIT: For context, this was a contrarian opinion of Amazon.com in 2001 http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2001/04/30/301918/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2001/...
- rehack 14y ago
  >Changes to Facebook are like fluctuations in gas prices though. People grumble and complain, then just go ahead and don't change their habit. IMO, its like this. We spend a lot of time here on HN. Just like a whole lot more people do on Facebook. But we come to HN for a specific purpose to engage in these kind of discussions. Just like it will be difficult for PG to convert this into something else which makes more money (PG gave the example of a market place), I think it will be no simpler for Mark Zuckerberg. PS: This was my take on FB, before the IPO http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3949048 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3949048
  - kamaal 14y ago
    FB has insane guaranteed users. Imagine a 'search the internet' or 'search videos' bar somewhere in the Facebook homepage. Even Google knows that's dangerous.
    - rehack 14y ago
      One's local circle of friends on FB makes for perhaps 1%, in terms of its quality & value, of the overall number of signals(200?), that Google uses for its search. Just like we come to HN for discussions, which our social circle on FB is not able to satisfy. Similarly, people will continue to go to the best search engine for searching for information. Even today, if you want to get an overall sense of what people are thinking in general, you go to twitter search. Facebook you mostly search for persons, and what they are doing. It will be very difficult to change that. PS: I realize my first para is speculative. And the rest is opinion.
      - kamaal 14y ago
        >>Similarly, people will continue to go to the best search engine for searching for information. There is no reason why Facebook can't become that. If Apple can make phones and Google can make phone OS. If Microsoft can make gaming consoles. There is nothing stopping FB from doing it.
        rehack 14y ago
        Yes, that's possible. But then it will be doing something new and different, isn't it? And it has to be more based on the spending power it has. And not related to its social network power. Google put G+ on its home page, with not much success. Similarly, why should FB get a leverage out of just putting search on its home page. Unless the search is really better than Google's. What advantage FB has over say blekko in competing in search?
        hackinthebochs 14y ago
        They don't need to do anything new or different. The barrier to a user to use a new search is miniscule. It's even less if you're already spending 90% of your online time on that site to begin with. G+ didn't work out because there is a huge barrier to users to become active on it. The two are vastly different.
grkballer44 14y ago
FB already got their $16 billion. If your in it for the long term, uproar away that nest egg should be able to last a while. Check ins, ads, app platform, lots of monetization strategies. The only people burned are short term investors who buy in at a bad time. FB ONLY potential problem is losing RELEVANCE. You don't lose users by not monetizing mobile, but you can lose users by monetizing mobile however. Short/steady wins the race, especially with 16 billion in the bank
kawera 14y ago
Many ebay users also use FB. And a lot of FB users use Paypal. Think about it. Ads, movies, music, even games aren't really what will help then make huge amounts of money. Transactions will.
- rehack 14y ago
  Agree transactions will make money for somebody. Let me take just take one example of 'movies' from your sentence. Would you think of Youtube or Facebook as a natural choice for watching paid videos/movies? Likewise, IMO, there will be specific things for specific purposes. I will proffer that the specific purpose for FB usage are things like vanity and managing one's image (how one wants to be seen in their social circle). Recently I am seeing some 'xyz watched some <abc video> on Social cam' kind of statuses on FB, of some xyzs who I am sure have not noticed such broadcast to their friends. These kind of mistakes, might just result in some very embarrassed and angry people. (Am I the only one scared of clicking on anything, on any web page on the Internet, that is wrapped in 'Facebook blue' ?) I believe the privacy concerns of these kind are going to spread to a wider base of people. Edit: rephrase
  - kamaal 14y ago
    >>Recently I am seeing some 'xyz watched some <abc video> on Social cam' kind of statuses on FB, of some xyzs who I am sure have not noticed such broadcast to their friends. These kind of mistakes, might just result in some very embarrassed and angry people. This is true. Since I observed this. I take care to log out of Gmail/Facebook/Twitter once I am done with them. And I never browse anything when I'm logged into into one of those sites. >>Am I the only one scared of clicking on anything, on any web page on the Internet, that is wrapped in 'Facebook blue' ? A lot of people are scared. I had to call friend to tell him personally that the <abc video> he watched that is showing up as the status might be embarrassing and he had to login and delete that from this status.
    - rehack 14y ago
      I don't logout, but try to open any links from within FB in 'incognito' mode.

by rehack 14y ago

9oliYQjP 14y ago

Changes to Facebook are like fluctuations in gas prices though. People grumble and complain, then just go ahead and don't change their habit. I'm pretty conspiracy-theorish on the whole Facebook thing. A part of me wants to believe Mark managed to hack the entire system. He got the maximum amount of money out of the IPO to build up a huge cash reserve for his company. He made his big acquisition before the IPO; future acquisitions may be harder now that the share price is what it is. But he has also sent a shock wave through the entire eco-system. If things cool off a bit, he'll be able to find more talent to work at Facebook at more reasonable prices. He won't have current employees looking to run off and start a bubbly startup. It just seems like a brilliant hack :) I'm probably reading far too much into the whole situation. During this cooling off period, Facebook can disregard their short term share price and experiment wildly until they figure out something that works. There's not an investor alive who thinks there's anybody more capable than Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook CEO. Nobody will oust him in the short- to medium-term. Facebook is a very much in the same position that Amazon.com was in around 2001. They have the means to figure this out. Other startups trying to follow suit don't have this luxury any more. But Facebook sure does. EDIT: For context, this was a contrarian opinion of Amazon.com in 2001 http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2001/04/30/301918/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2001/...

rehack 14y ago
>Changes to Facebook are like fluctuations in gas prices though. People grumble and complain, then just go ahead and don't change their habit. IMO, its like this. We spend a lot of time here on HN. Just like a whole lot more people do on Facebook. But we come to HN for a specific purpose to engage in these kind of discussions. Just like it will be difficult for PG to convert this into something else which makes more money (PG gave the example of a market place), I think it will be no simpler for Mark Zuckerberg. PS: This was my take on FB, before the IPO http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3949048 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3949048
- kamaal 14y ago
  FB has insane guaranteed users. Imagine a 'search the internet' or 'search videos' bar somewhere in the Facebook homepage. Even Google knows that's dangerous.
  - rehack 14y ago
    One's local circle of friends on FB makes for perhaps 1%, in terms of its quality & value, of the overall number of signals(200?), that Google uses for its search. Just like we come to HN for discussions, which our social circle on FB is not able to satisfy. Similarly, people will continue to go to the best search engine for searching for information. Even today, if you want to get an overall sense of what people are thinking in general, you go to twitter search. Facebook you mostly search for persons, and what they are doing. It will be very difficult to change that. PS: I realize my first para is speculative. And the rest is opinion.
    - kamaal 14y ago
      >>Similarly, people will continue to go to the best search engine for searching for information. There is no reason why Facebook can't become that. If Apple can make phones and Google can make phone OS. If Microsoft can make gaming consoles. There is nothing stopping FB from doing it.
      - rehack 14y ago
        Yes, that's possible. But then it will be doing something new and different, isn't it? And it has to be more based on the spending power it has. And not related to its social network power. Google put G+ on its home page, with not much success. Similarly, why should FB get a leverage out of just putting search on its home page. Unless the search is really better than Google's. What advantage FB has over say blekko in competing in search?
        hackinthebochs 14y ago
        They don't need to do anything new or different. The barrier to a user to use a new search is miniscule. It's even less if you're already spending 90% of your online time on that site to begin with. G+ didn't work out because there is a huge barrier to users to become active on it. The two are vastly different.

grkballer44 14y ago

FB already got their $16 billion. If your in it for the long term, uproar away that nest egg should be able to last a while. Check ins, ads, app platform, lots of monetization strategies. The only people burned are short term investors who buy in at a bad time. FB ONLY potential problem is losing RELEVANCE. You don't lose users by not monetizing mobile, but you can lose users by monetizing mobile however. Short/steady wins the race, especially with 16 billion in the bank

kawera 14y ago

Many ebay users also use FB. And a lot of FB users use Paypal. Think about it. Ads, movies, music, even games aren't really what will help then make huge amounts of money. Transactions will.

rehack 14y ago
Agree transactions will make money for somebody. Let me take just take one example of 'movies' from your sentence. Would you think of Youtube or Facebook as a natural choice for watching paid videos/movies? Likewise, IMO, there will be specific things for specific purposes. I will proffer that the specific purpose for FB usage are things like vanity and managing one's image (how one wants to be seen in their social circle). Recently I am seeing some 'xyz watched some <abc video> on Social cam' kind of statuses on FB, of some xyzs who I am sure have not noticed such broadcast to their friends. These kind of mistakes, might just result in some very embarrassed and angry people. (Am I the only one scared of clicking on anything, on any web page on the Internet, that is wrapped in 'Facebook blue' ?) I believe the privacy concerns of these kind are going to spread to a wider base of people. Edit: rephrase
- kamaal 14y ago
  >>Recently I am seeing some 'xyz watched some <abc video> on Social cam' kind of statuses on FB, of some xyzs who I am sure have not noticed such broadcast to their friends. These kind of mistakes, might just result in some very embarrassed and angry people. This is true. Since I observed this. I take care to log out of Gmail/Facebook/Twitter once I am done with them. And I never browse anything when I'm logged into into one of those sites. >>Am I the only one scared of clicking on anything, on any web page on the Internet, that is wrapped in 'Facebook blue' ? A lot of people are scared. I had to call friend to tell him personally that the <abc video> he watched that is showing up as the status might be embarrassing and he had to login and delete that from this status.
  - rehack 14y ago
    I don't logout, but try to open any links from within FB in 'incognito' mode.