Social media monetization is a funny thing - most people don't understand that where there are people, there is money. It is highly improbable that the day will come when millions of people together will not mean money. Why? Because money = value systems. We use money - or some form of currency - to show what we value. Here's speculation by The Business Insider on Facebook's revenue streams:
Earlier this week (July 2nd 2009) we spoke to several sources who each have some insight into Facebook's financials (none of them know precisely). Taking the sources' input together, we'd estimate the company's expected 2009 revenue this way:
- $125 million from brand ads
- $150 million from Facebook's ad deal with Microsoft
- $75 million from virtual goods
- $200 million from self-service ads.
Total: $550 Million.
The trick is figuring out what bits are valued and how much, and by whom, and in what way. That's the thing...
In this case, the virtual goods (Facebook birthday cake for $1 anyone?) and the self-service ads (Facebooks answer to Google's Adsense, or Adwords or whatever it's called) are surprisingly high, no? I mean, compared to the traditional deals...
Nick Roshon asks why Facebook revenue is so low compared to MySpace. I venture to guess that MySpace Google ad deal is included in their $2.17 per member per year - that's a nice chunk of change. MySpace also run event management - such as product launches and album launches for major labels, so they have additional revenue streams. Also MySpace is a more mature organisation... though cutting back their staff (450 international staff to 100)Â is going to severely limit growth.
Technorati Tags: business models, Facebook, Monetization, Money, MySpace, revenue, revenue streams, virtual goods
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