> I really, really wish people would stop boiling "Virtual Goods" down to "cute pictures of cats". If it were that simple, there wouldn't be a 9-figure virtual

> I really, really wish people would stop boiling "Virtual Goods" down to "cute pictures of cats". If it were that simple, there wouldn't be a 9-figure virtual good economy on Facebook today. It's 8 figures (between $28,500,000 and $43,500,000: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10030354-62.html http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10030354-62.html ), and consists almost entirely of cute pictures of cats (and dogs and hearts and thongs). > He boils it down to three big categories - Doing More, Building Relationships, and Establishing identity. It will be interesting to see if Facebook can expand their strategy to include these. I contend that they are not really doing so now - GIF's on a FB wall are not meaningful ways of building or maintaining a relationship, and I pity/dread a world in which they are. Doing More - Can FB legitimately charge for certain features on their site? I would pay to remove ads, but I can't think of much else. Since they have an free/open apps API, almost any feature they could think to charge for could easily be replaced by a free app, no? Building Relationships - Again, I think people will soon realize that gifts on walls do not actually provide any tangible relationship value. Are there any services they can provide that do? I can think of one - networking, hooking me up to potential employers, partners, VC's, etc. The problem here is asymmetric power structures: I might pay a little money to meet some local people who share some of my same interests and hobbies, and so might they. However, I'd also pay money to get my name in front of a big VC, but what incentive would the VC have to pay attention and follow up? Establishing Identity - I'd bet that 90% of users today are happy with the 'identity' that the standard facebook profile gives them, and those who aren't can add apps to augment it. The only niche I see is enabling custom page layouts and designs for paying users, and seeing as how they've held out on this for many years (even with lots of pressure), I don't see it happening anytime soon. I'd gladly take this a little more seriously if you could come up with some concrete examples of virtual goods FB could provide. Whether you call the current economy of virtual goods "relationship-builders" or "silly," it is currently comprised almost entirely of image-based "gifts." Unless these sites figure out some meaningful ways to augment them, I'd bet this revenue stream turns out to be mostly unsustainable.