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This is why I get so amped up about this entire discussion. One of the things that's so great about an API-centered business model is that there are a ton of cr

This is why I get so amped up about this entire discussion. One of the things that's so great about an API-centered business model is that there are a ton of creative decisions that have to be made in order to monetize it. Do you sell per request? Per user? Do you charge a monthly fee and throttle the developers feed? Do you make some parts of the API, like user names and network names, freely available, while other parts are more expensive, like the edges of the social graph or individual interests? These questions are so much fun. Finding the answers to them would be even more fun, and ultimately profitable, even if the answer to the question ends up being, "None of them work, let's go to advertising." When Facebook jumped headfirst into advertising by hiring Sheryl Sandberg in 2008, they made it impossible to ask these questions.

Evbn 14y ago
Why do you single out and blame Sheryl Sandberg for this? Everyone making money on the consumer web agrees with her. If you aren't a selling hardware or consumables, you sell ads.
- padobson 14y ago
  The point of the article is not that she's incompetent or bad at her job. The point of the article is that once Facebook hired her to help them come up with a business model, ads were a foregone conclusion. She led the charge on the monetization problem. There was never any serious consideration of real, creative alternatives. I don't think she's done a bad job at Facebook. She's actually done a great job at selling ads - that's something she's been doing very well for 11 years now. But a company like Facebook doesn't come along often, and when you're the COO of Facebook you owe it to your employees, your investors, your industry, and the world to attempt to create entirely new ways of doing things. There was no real creativity in the Facebook monetization solution - which sucks because up to that point Facebook was one of the most creative technology companies. But blaming Sandberg for selling advertising is like blaming Elton John for selling music. It's what she does. Sandberg didn't make any real mistakes - she did the job she was hired to do. Facebook made the mistakes by letting her decide how to monetize.

Evbn 14y ago

Why do you single out and blame Sheryl Sandberg for this? Everyone making money on the consumer web agrees with her. If you aren't a selling hardware or consumables, you sell ads.

padobson 14y ago
The point of the article is not that she's incompetent or bad at her job. The point of the article is that once Facebook hired her to help them come up with a business model, ads were a foregone conclusion. She led the charge on the monetization problem. There was never any serious consideration of real, creative alternatives. I don't think she's done a bad job at Facebook. She's actually done a great job at selling ads - that's something she's been doing very well for 11 years now. But a company like Facebook doesn't come along often, and when you're the COO of Facebook you owe it to your employees, your investors, your industry, and the world to attempt to create entirely new ways of doing things. There was no real creativity in the Facebook monetization solution - which sucks because up to that point Facebook was one of the most creative technology companies. But blaming Sandberg for selling advertising is like blaming Elton John for selling music. It's what she does. Sandberg didn't make any real mistakes - she did the job she was hired to do. Facebook made the mistakes by letting her decide how to monetize.