Facebook to Market Its User Base

Image via CrunchBase

Yes, they  need to make money somehow, someday. It’s more crucial than ever in 2009, to justify the (very likely very highly inflated) value that’s been put on it:

Zuckerberg said 2009 will be Facebook’s “intense” year as it tries to justify some of the mammoth valuations that have been placed upon it by making some serious revenues through advertising.

(Facebook Marketing)

What they are planning on doing (maybe)? Offering up their user base for market research purposes (polls, questionnaires and such). While not as bad as intrusive advertising (remember Facebook Beacon anyone?), it still raises concerns about privacy (somehow they will need to query your data in order to see whether you would ‘fit the bill’ of the market research brief). Good job I have disabled my FB profile.

But it is another development that confirms my intended retreat from the online world.

And one other quick point about inflated company evaluations: Remember Friends Reunited anyone? The company was sold to ITV for £175 million in 2005, and this was a ‘web 1.0′ social network. Just how much less Friends Reunited is worth these days is yet to be audited (ITV to slash value of Friends Reunited) – but undoubtedly it’s going to be a fair bit less (have you been on the site? It’s DIRE, and the competition for online social spaces is now so much higher than back in 2005).

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