4 ms·

Once again, history repeats itself. Facebook users fell for it. Facebook advertisers fell for it. Facebook investors fell for it... It's a terrible situatio

by pj 17y ago

Once again, history repeats itself. Facebook users fell for it. Facebook advertisers fell for it. Facebook investors fell for it... It's a terrible situation for everyone involved. It's the great lie of the internet. MySpace laid off 30%. Seriously, why does anyone think Facebook is immune? It doesn't work people. It just doesn't work.

zaidf 17y ago
What doesn't work?
- aristus 17y ago
  Having infrastructure costs similar to running a search engine, but a revenue model that is at best 1/10th as efficient as search keyword advertising. You can demo-target display ads all you want, but the facts remain: search engine users are searching for something specific while social network users are just dicking around. Facebook's current advertising model is essentially the same as Yahoo's display ads plus some demo-target frosting. Note that a) Yahoo has additional revenue streams and b) isn't doing that well.
  - zaidf 17y ago
    It is one thing to say facebook's current advertising isn't working. It is another to use that fact to reach a conclusion like "It's the great lie of the internet." I use facebook. And clock over 10 hours a day with a fb window open. According to the OP, I've bought into some type of a lie. I'm wondering what that is. Re: revenue...give them time. I think they'll figure out. It usually takes web companies with explosive growth some time to pin down their source of $. And offering myspace's poor management as evidence of why facebook is bad makes zero sense. I think facebook's paypal-killer will be its source of revenue in future.
    - aristus 17y ago
      "great lie" was pj's phrase, not mine, but I took that to mean "perennial tar-pit". FB might succeed but a long string of similar social media businesses have failed to pin down the whole revenue/cost thing. It'll have to be something very different from display ads.

by pj 17y ago

zaidf 17y ago

What doesn't work?

aristus 17y ago
Having infrastructure costs similar to running a search engine, but a revenue model that is at best 1/10th as efficient as search keyword advertising. You can demo-target display ads all you want, but the facts remain: search engine users are searching for something specific while social network users are just dicking around. Facebook's current advertising model is essentially the same as Yahoo's display ads plus some demo-target frosting. Note that a) Yahoo has additional revenue streams and b) isn't doing that well.
- zaidf 17y ago
  It is one thing to say facebook's current advertising isn't working. It is another to use that fact to reach a conclusion like "It's the great lie of the internet." I use facebook. And clock over 10 hours a day with a fb window open. According to the OP, I've bought into some type of a lie. I'm wondering what that is. Re: revenue...give them time. I think they'll figure out. It usually takes web companies with explosive growth some time to pin down their source of $. And offering myspace's poor management as evidence of why facebook is bad makes zero sense. I think facebook's paypal-killer will be its source of revenue in future.
  - aristus 17y ago
    "great lie" was pj's phrase, not mine, but I took that to mean "perennial tar-pit". FB might succeed but a long string of similar social media businesses have failed to pin down the whole revenue/cost thing. It'll have to be something very different from display ads.