Facebook & Twitter: Making Money Takes Back Seat to Growth
Despite the economic downturn, making money is not a concern for two of the biggest players in the Web 2.0 consumer market. During separate keynotes at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, executives from Twitter and Facebook said their companies aren't focused on creating a profitable business model anytime soon, telling the audience they were more interested in growing their respective sites and catering to end-users.
Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's founder and CEO, told attendees at the Summit that during the past year his company of 700 employees had largely focused on user growth, moving from 50 million active users to 130 million. He also noted that they were focused on expanding internationally, adding 20 languages to the service.
"Growth is a strategic thing for us," he said. "We're not as focused on optimizing revenue. Now, people have said we're not thinking about it [and not developing a strategy], but that's completely wrong. We have thousands and thousands of advertisers coming to the site and reaching people."
Throughout the keynote, moderated by John Battelle, the founder of Federated Media, questions centered around the company's ability to make money.
Zuckerberg said that the company had made progress selling its social ads, which broadcast the users' behavior to their friends. For example, if they watch the preview of a movie, and comment on it, that information will be broadcast to their friends on the service.
Facebook received criticism when it first tried such a method, known as beacon advertising, last year. But when it relaunched a similar feature, known as social ads, it offered an opt-out capability. Many see this ad model as a big part of the company's future.
Sign up for ITworld's Daily newsletter
Follow ITworld on Twitter @IT_world
On Twitter now
jfruh
Apple syncing patent can't come soon enough
pasmith
New Twitter features borrow from 3rd party clients
Esther Schindler
Open Source Changes the Software Acquisition Process
mikelgan
How to set up continuous podcast play on the new iTunes
David Strom
Five important Windows 7 mobility features
sjvn
Guard your Wi-Fi for your own sake
Sandra Henry-Stocker
Grepping on Whole Words
Sidekick: The Good News & the Bad News
Either way you look at it Microsoft Data Center management did not follow standards or best practices in this failure. In which case it makes me wonder more about the outsourcing of corporate data much less personal data.
- mburton325
Join the conversation here
Quick, practical advice for IT pros. Made fresh daily.
Want to cash in on your IT savvy? Send your tip to tips@itworld.com. If we post it, we'll send you a $25 Amazon e-gift card.
awesome
Many thanks to face book for providing such a user friendly social networking....it is remarkable...lolTwitter for internal business communications
Yammer already provides a comparable service for internal business communications. I doubt that Twitter will be able to capture this market effectively.Why Revenues Matter, Twitter
The more I use twitter, the less I use Twitter.com. That is, more and more of the functionality is moving out to partner and competitor sites like Twitteriffic, Twitterholic and Yammer.Oddly, this may be the biggest reason why revenues matter. Revenues provide the basis for an arms-length valuation. Valuation gives their equity currency. Currency enables them to build with big blocks by acquiring companies with promising extensions to their platform.
More here: http://snurl.com/4lwpe.