Would you pay $1 a month for Facebook?
CNET News Poll
As fast-growing Facebook closes in on MySpace in the U.S. in terms of unique visitors later this year, it's burning through millions of dollars a month (some claim it's as high as $20 million), with no magic levers to reverse the trend in the short term.
In November 2007, when Facebook took a $240 million stake from Microsoft, the investment was at a $15 billion valuation. Now it's down to $4 billion and probably less. As Caroline McCarthy reported a few days ago, rumor has it that "one potential investor submitted a term sheet for a valuation in the neighborhood of $2 billion."
As Facebook works its way toward a probable IPO, the big question is: how can it show it can make money? Well, one way--and I'm not the first to suggest it--would be to charge a nominal monthly fee. With that in mind, I ask a simple question: how much would you be willing to pay to use Facebook per month?
A lot of people I ask say they'd pay $1 a month--or, preferably, a yearly fee of $10 if paid in one shot. But some say they have Facebook fatigue and would rather quit than pay a dime.
Comments?
Hunkered down in New York City, Executive Editor David Carnoy covers the gamut of gadgets and writes his Fully Equipped column, which carries the tag line "The electronics you lust for." He's also the author of "Knife Music," a novel. E-mail David. Follow David on Twitter.
(by and by i dont use facebook)
As for Youtube, go research the recent news about Youtube.
I'd pay $1/mo for Facebook. But I'd rather FB charges $3/mo for corporate membership and fan pages and lets the general public keep using it for free.
In the Facebook site, I have been able to, effortlessly, reconnect with past classmates, old family/neighborhood friends, and current personal friends. I have yet to see a REAL professional nature about the Facebook site. Maybe it's how I have set my profile, but I don't think may people would like to come to my site to see a range of daily comments from people they don't know or don't care about. And again, Facebook is a social site, not really necessary for a professional resume.
The high-powered employees I would deal with, have specially designed corporate sites/portals that handle HR functions and would advise against directing a potential employer to your social web site for consideration for a professional job.
Facebook, MySpace, Google, Twitter, etc. aren't really worth anything. Their networks are vast in size, but what do they really add to being a professional? Not to say, they aren't valuable to the business that's making money from them, but the average professional my steer clear.
I thought Facebook was created to make real professional & formal connections with friends and potential clients, businesses, and employers. It took me a while to really warm up to Facebook after many faithful MySpace users started to defect b/c of the teen, fun-room, x-rated, NSFW, NSFparents content started to show up on MySpace accounts. I had only been a member of MySpace for a few months before signing up for a Facebook account.
In the Facebook site, I have been able to, effortlessly, reconnect with past classmates, old family/neighborhood friends, and current personal friends. This is probably where Classmates.com has failed.I have yet to see a REAL professional nature about the Facebook site. Maybe it's how I have set my profile, but I don't think may people would like to come to my site to see a range of daily comments from people they don't know or don't care about. And again, Facebook is a social site, not really necessary for a professional resume.
The high-powered employees I would deal with, have specially designed corporate sites/portals that handle HR functions and would advise against directing a potential employer to your social web site for consideration for a professional job.
Facebook, MySpace, Google, Twitter, etc. aren't really worth anything. Their networks are vast in size, but what do they really add to being a professional? Not to say, they aren't valuable to the business that's making money from them, but the average professional my steer clear.
@blusky 08
Yeah, dumb people using the internet to communicate. They should call each other on the telephone, it's much more personal. Or they can just fly to another state whenever you'd like to talk to a distant friend. And if you'd like to respond to this, I expect a handwritten letter.
BTW: If you can't pick up a phone and call a friend (or at least send a simple email) are you really close enough to even bother?
But for many and including me it is an easy way to keep in touch without all the expense. Facebook lets me keep up with what my friends on the otherside of the world have being doing all at once, instead of having to phone or email every single one and expect a reply. I would happily pay $10 a year for facebook, its cheaper than places like friends reunited and all those similar ones.
Facebook is arrogant because they could care less what its users want... The change interfaces which cause HUGE protests and they could care less... complete disdain for the users. And If anyone thinks that charging for the site wont eliminate 90+% of the users then you need to wake up.
@Wildfires
I don't use facebook anymore... I got sick of idiotic abortion interface changes. You might pay, but I would bet that the VAST majority would just go to the next free site. Facebooks real value is in the amount of users it has, if people start abandoning it, then there wouldn't be that easy way to stay connected would there???
Aside from that observation, I think you'd be surprised to know that most people I know use online social networks as a supplemental form of communication with their friends, rather than a primary one.
"?People should be able to use Facebook for free to establish a presence, connect with others, and share information with them. Every Person should be able to use the Facebook Service regardless of his or her level of participation or contribution?"
- Article 7, Proposed Facebook Principles (Currently being voted on)
When Facebook was still college only, I heard they made millions just from the ads. Was that just misinformation?
It is no one's business if Facebook makes money or not? How about the business' investors and prospective investors, since they too were a focal point of the article..
Uh, too late. Google knows everything you do online.
Seriously, why more people aren't concerned about this is beyond me.
I'm pulling for Facebook, and I think there's a lot of hatred for Zucker that is purely based on envy. With that said, it may be time for him to bring in a real businessman to help monetize, like Google did by bringing in Schmidt.
Playing with Scrabble on the iPhone opened my eyes to the potential of a well-managed Facebook (you can play games with your facebook pals basically). If you have the established default social network why the hell would you want to try and get a revenue stream from the one source that has the power to bring you down i.e. the user base?
Asking users for a credit card when signing up for a FB account would spell the end of Facebook, but pulling some money out of all those power users probably won't be too hard. Then again, it's possible that the people who use Facebook the most (students etc) have the least amount of money to spend.
But I do miss the good old days of plain jane facebook and when it wasnt full of random people like myspace. and i still would rather not have to pay for something especially since ive been using it for so long for free.
-
by Shibusuke
April 17, 2009 1:08 PM PDT
- I believe that valuing the service at $1 per month is fair, but personally, I think I would resent having to pay, especially since it's been free for so long. It would also place Facebook at a disadvantage to the other, free social networking sites, so I doubt it'll happen. I do hope that Facebook comes up with a decent business model though, because the level and ease of connection that it provides (that's how I logged in to post this!) is certainly not worthless.
-
Reply to this comment
-
Showing 1 of 7 pages (181 Comments)