October 9th, 2008
Facebook: Revenue plan by 2011; Growth is key for now.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he’s more focused on growing the social networking site than he is in finding a way to monetize it - at least for now. In a Q&A interview with German blog Netzökonom, Zuckerberg has basically given himself and the company three years to come up with a revenue plan that works for social networking sites. (Techmeme)
In some ways, that could be a good thing. Who knows how long it will take for the U.S. - and potentially many other countries - to recover from the economic crash that’s crippling banks and credit markets and quickly rippling down to companies and consumers? Facebook, thanks to a $240 million injection from Microsoft less than a year ago, can afford to let the whirlwind market stabilize.
The site is quickly discovering that advertising models that worked with search and other web services aren’t necessarily effective in social networks. The click-through rates for ads on Facebook have been described as dismal. Zuckerberg says Facebook is still experimenting with different approaches and will find the magic formula for a revenue model that works for his site.
Still, in Internet years, three years is a long time. For all we know, some future Harvard dropout is developing something now that will unseat Facebook. Zuckerberg is positioned well - for now. Facebook has only been around for four years but only in the last two years has the site been open to people other than college students. In those two years, Facebook has become the poster child for the Web 2.0 movement.
That’s how quickly things change in the Internet age. For all we know, in three years, Facebook - the current big thing on the Web - could be back-burnered by the next big thing.
Sam Diaz is a senior editor at ZDNet. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
