Capping IT Off
Some might wonder if Facebook will ever reach 1 billion users, however Mark Zuckerberg is confident about it. And I think he is right, Facebook is the platform that can grow to this number an even finance its growth.
Since Facebook is thriving on information that users provide (your data is their biggest asset), they might even want to make sure that with the number of new users joining, they still acquire more and more information of their users. Facebook will earn more money if they have more data (and they might already earn around 1 billion a year), so why shouldn’t Facebook just pay every user who completes his profile.
By not only offering the incentive of keeping in touch with your friends and catching up with old friends and like minds, but by also offering some money ($5?) for a completed profile. It would be easy for Facebook to get to 1 billion members and collecting more information from its users. Both the amount of users as the immense data set will push the revenues of Facebook and will increase the dominance of Facebook on the Web.
However entering data in a profile is easy, though incorrect information will devalue Facebook. Data validation should be just another part of the social ecosystem of Facebook. For example: your friends can validate your profile, making sure your will get your $5 dollars from Facebook (maybe even in micropayments for you and your friends per ‘slice’ of data you provide and is approved). Or: your friends can provide the information to Facebook and you can validate this information and approve the publication of the data.
Using this process Facebook gets more interconnected, creating more activity on the platform and it might even create more relations. And again, even this process will increase the value of Facebook. So paying $5 per complete profile might be just a bargain for Facebook.
tweetmeme_url = ‘http://www.capgemini.com/technology-blog/2010/07/how_facebook_will_get_to_1_bil.php’;
tweetmeme_style = ‘compact’;
Rick Mans is a social media evangelist within Capgemini. You can follow and connect with him via Twitter or his personal blog
About the author
Rick is on a day to day basis working on social media (strategy) cases for several (Fortune 500) clients. He lives and loves social media, helping people and enterprises in using social media in a way that adds value for them. He also gives guest lectures at several universities to make students aware of the impact social media will have on their life in general and on enterprises in particular in the near and not so near future. Is he a geek? Well… yes. A geek with a social life though. Even one with a wife and a young son, who’s first English words were ‘Social media’.
- More at
The thing is though, Facebook won’t feel like a fun place anymore if they start paying users. It will feel just ever so slightly like a scam! I think that offering money to its users would drive them away. In my opinion, a pay-off of any kind would make user rethink the amount of data they are providing. Doubtlessly, some people would take the money, but I think they could use all that money to build some features that would elecit that same information. An example of features like that is the face recognition software, that helps to find connections between people. What if they started to use the ‘events’ and offer users a full planning experience, including a ‘shopping list’… how would that be for commercial value? Much better then just paying of users!
I think they would run the risk of alienating a lot of people if they were to take the approach of allowing your friends to enter data about you! With all the issues of privacy and identity, I’d like to keep (some sembance) of control over what Facebook know about me…. so I’d be very uneasy if any of my contacts could start entering information – even if I then had to “validate” what had been said. I guess it could also provide another avenue for bullying online – a gang of friends consistently posting defamatory information about someone!
Pingback: How Google+ Will Get To 1 Billion members | Capping IT Off | Capgemini