3 years is probably how long it will take for people to have enough
personal data and other investment in the system to consider paying $9
a month for it. plus by then they'll be sure their competitors have
given up, assuming facebook still exists. :-)
personally, I think facebook is the digital equivalent of the leisure
suit.
MT
On Oct 10, 2008, at 1:43 PM, Andrei Herasimchuk wrote:
On Oct 9, 2008, at 5:27 PM, Jared Spool wrote:
What I've been praying for, to learn what Facebook's business plan
is, will be finally answered!
In 3 years, once Mark Zuckerberg figures it out.
http://is.gd/3MSY
So... I have to wonder out loud: Why not just charge $9/month for a
Facebook account? I know that's so 1992 with an that oh-so-dated
America Online model, but hey... At some point, we'll all finally
get past the silly notion that stuff should always be free.
Advertising can only support so many businesses in this space.
Sure, they'd piss people off (too bad, I say) and lose a bunch in
the process. But if they retained only 25% of a user base of around
50M that are willing to pay $9/month or $99/year, that's 12.5M
users, and a yearly revenue of something like $1.2B a year. The
question is more would they be able to keep 10M to 12M people paying
$9 a month, I think.
Blizzard has around that for World of Warcraft paying $15 a month,
and it's just a game. I think Facebook would be able to pull it off.
If Facebook or Google started charging for accounts (Google then
gets money for its applications like Docs, Spreadsheets and such),
it would open the door for everyone in the software business to get
back to having real business models that aren't built out of straw
during a fire season waiting for it all to go up in smoke at a
moment's notice.
--
Andrei Herasimchuk
Principal, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world
e. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
c. +1 408 306 6422
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