Facebook Revenue: Billions In 5 Years

Mark Andreessen, a board member on Facebook, told Reuters that they may pile up $1 billion in revenue during 2009 if the group is able to push advertising on the site.

Referring himself to Facebook as "The Thing", he declared that it can be making billions in revenue in just five years.

I'm not really sure where did he get the 5 year time period, however, as today, the ROI for advertising campaigns inside Facebook hasn't been as expected.

Have you noticed the presence of a big company in Facebook advertising? or a big advertising agency offering campaigns inside Facebook?

Even with the 225 million Facebook users, it will be very hard to compete in advertising with Google and even with Yahoo.

Facebook currently displays ads only in one section of the page. A maximum of 2 ads are displayed on the screen at the same time and the ad changes only when the page is refreshed.

Since the News Feed on Facebook can be updated without refreshing the screen, the user can be watching the same ad for the entire day.

"Ads And Pages" is the Facebook application used for creating marketing campaigns. It misses a lot of features specially if you compare it with the Google Adwords tool.

According to Facebook, campaigns can be targeted by gender, age and keywords. (It is unclear how do they use the keywords) . Place a single word keyword on the ad options and you will see how your audience is dramatically reduced.

Have You Meet the Palm Pre?

Palm finally released (June 6th) their latest communication device for Sprint: The Palm Pre.

I'm describing the unit as a communications device because any of the other names like cellular phone or PDA will be too short for the great number of features that you will get with the Pre.

First of all, the Pre runs a new operating system made from scratch called Web OS. Even though Palm denominates Web OS as an operating system, it is really a framework that run's over Linux.

Yes, Linux, this may be the new favorite device for open source lovers.

Web OS utilizes web standards for applications including HTML, CSS and Javascript. An application for Web OS consist in an Index.html page and the frameworks provides javascript and CSS include files for the visual interface and to control all the phone features and services, like GPS locator, file system, etc.

Additional libraries, like JQuery, can be installed into the Linux operating system to create full functional Ajax applications.

Information inside the phone is stored in MySql-lite databases, as you can see, everything using open source standards.

Complementary Comment for Randy Smythe Today’s Post

This comment is to complement the related to the post “Will it be Feast or Famine for eBay Sellers in Q4!” By Randy Smythe on his Blog Utopia!

It’s unbelievable what these guys at eBay are doing: They are taken decisions without deep evaluation, and then when they calculate the new results, they simply roll back.

eBay main source of income is not on FVF, it is on insertion fees (at least now). The model will not work with FVF's only, that's why they rolled back the auctions.

At the end of the day fixed lists will become store items, no one will see them, but instead of paying 2 cents for them you will now be paying 35 cents.

If you want exposure, you will have to pay for it, by using standard auctions or the outrageous featured listing fees.

eBay must understand that sellers need the 4^th quarter strategy now, and it is absolutely impossible to design it with all those changes.

Also if you haven’t noticed, currently Best Match is not promoting the free shipping listings on the auction format, only on fixed items.

And Now: The eBay Flip Flop for this Week

The eBay finding time pulls the trigger again, this week, by rolling back a previously posted change regarding the “Identical Items Rule”.

According to Neelikea from the eBay Finding Team and her post on the Search Discussion board (link here), auctions and featured items will roll back to its origin by removing the item duplication policy.

If you are a well organized seller who developed a new selling strategy using different titles you may start to count how many hours did you waste, because at least with auctions, you can flood the site again with the same item.

This new announcement reassembles the fantastic video posted by Randy Smythe “Disruptive Innovation!”

Facebook: 10 Million Users Joined In Just One Month

Facebook just announced 100 million of active users. On my last article about them (Facebook Targeted Advertisement published on July 30^th), the number described on the site was 90 million. Ten million more in just one month is absolutely amazing.

When I think about Facebook, one question comes to my mind: Is the Zuckerberg venture generating revenue?

In October 2007, Microsoft paid $240 million, going over Google’s offer, to acquire 1.6% of Facebook and being the primary advertisement partner.

Google already invested $900 million in MySpace (Facebook main competitor).

Is really a good idea to advertise on places where people are looking for social stuff?

I’m currently running 3 ad campaigns for customers on Facebook. The result on all 3 has not been as expected. Only extremely targeted ads produce clicks, and of course, since the ad is so well targeted, the potential audience is minimal.

Ad’s running on MySpace come from Google Content’s Network. Since the campaign can be combined with other sites on the network and even with keyword placement on Goggle Search, the result is usually good.

Social Networking, a New Security Concern for Mexican Residents.

Due to the outrageous raising of criminal activity, specially kidnapping, in Mexico, police authorities and some other private security agencies are recommending Mexican residents to stay away from social networking.

According to an article, published by Milenio (Milenio is a major Mexican news publisher, link to the article in Spanish), social networking websites including Facebook, MySpace and Hi5, are providing criminal networks with all the necessary information for picking up their targets.

Pictures of Fernando Marti, a Mexican wealthy teenager kidnapped and murdered in Mexico City, were circulating on all major newspapers. Those pictures showing life style, friends, real state properties, etc. where all downloaded from Hi5 social networking site.

Even though here in the United States, personal security is not an issue, it is important to pay attention on our shared information and how is used, especially if we have kids.

Reviewing, the security policies on each website, and our account settings is just the beginning. Almost all the social networking websites have an access control list for our pictures, videos and personal information; keep an eye on it and educate your children too.

We must pay special attention to the profile picture.

The profile picture, is an image of ourselves used for the search engine. Usually legitimate people looking for us will just need our name and a picture, everything else must be private. Use a picture of yourself only, avoid family pictures; and just like your car parked at the mall, keep all the valuables out of view. If you have a yatch, good for you, but keep it out from the profile picture.

EBay Changes, Coming Soon On Sep 16th.

EBay is rolling out the biggest changes on their history on September 16th. Even if you are a small occasional seller, it is truly important to read about them and to be familiar with the new selling requirements, listing styles and searching technologies.

You can read about the changes on the eBay announcement page.

During the following days, I will be posting regarding this eBay revolution including some ideas for new selling strategies.