How much is that Facebook post worth to you?
Will Facebook start charging users to promote their posts to friends? A test going on in New Zealand says this might well be so.
A little report in a New Zealand newspaper is getting a ton of attention over on this side of Middle Earth. It seems that Facebook is testing out a scheme in which ordinary users can pay for the privilege of promoting their own posts.
According to the Fairfax NZ News, an unnamed Facebooker in Whangarei was posted something to his Facebook page, then was startled to be asked if he wouldn’t mind paying $1.80 to “make sure friends see this.”
Thinking it a scam, he contacted Facebook to find out what’s what. Nope, no scam, says Mia Garlick, manager of communications and policy at Facebook’s Australian outpost. Per the report:
"We're constantly testing new features across the site. This particular test is simply to gauge people's interest in this method of sharing with their friends," she said.
Facebook was trialling the feature at a range of different price points, including offering it "free", she said. This means that during the trial members may be asked to pay different amounts, or nothing, to use it.
Next, Facebook will enter the protection racket: Pay us five fins or that cute baby picture you just posted will be sleepin’ wid da fishes.
In the days leading up to its IPO – rumored to be hitting late next week – Facebook seems to be pulling out all the stops showing how it can make bundles of cash in ways other than selling ads against our Likes. For example, along with the new App Center, it announced this week that it may soon cost actual money to annoy your Facebook friends with games like CityVille and Words With Friends. And earlier today Facebook clarified its priva—err, I mean Data Use Policy -- to make it clear that it intends to use your Facebook data to display ads outside of Facebook, essentially taking Google head on in the ad biz.
It seems clear that Facebook is taking the doubts that its business model can sustain Google-like growth very seriously in the days leading up to Stockapalooza. From a privacy perspective, the question is, how desperate will Facebook be for revenue in the coming years? At what point will it decide to sell user data directly? That’s the biggest worry with the company going public.
Taking this topic on from the entirely opposite direction, Abine Inc has come up with a tool that measures how much your data is worth to Facebook. Called the Val-You Calculator, it’s a simple 7-question quiz that generates a dollar amount ranging from $2 to $91 – that’s how much Facebook will make from you each year, depending on where you live, how frequently you post, and other factors.
Average that out over Facebook’s approximately 800 million users and you arrive at around $4 billion – or what Facebook made from ads alone next year. And that’s not even including how much we’re willing to pay to share “ROFLMAO” with all our Facebook peeps.
Got a question about social media? TY4NS blogger Dan Tynan may have the answer (and if not, he’ll make something up). Visit his snarky, occasionally NSFW blog eSarcasm or follow him on Twitter: @tynanwrites. For the latest IT news, analysis and how-to’s, follow ITworld on Twitter and Facebook.
Now read this:
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