Is this the second Dot.com bubble?

[Taffy]

People must be doing some serious ad clicking then. Wow. I didn't realise how compulsive people are. How much do they get per click?

Using Google Adwords as an example, my company (high tech) pays between NT$28 and NT$117 per click, depending on the quality of the keyword, of which Google gets somewhere between 40% and 60%. Some really in-demand keywords can go much higher. There's gold in them there hills.

[cfimages]

People must be doing some serious ad clicking then. Wow. I didn't realise how compulsive people are. How much do they get per click?

A business can set a budget of what they want to spend on advertising or a time span. FB then takes that money and runs ads for as long as it takes to reach the budget or time span is over. There's a setting for maximum per day (or week etc), so if an ad gets enough clicks for the daily maximum by 10am, it won't be seen again until the next day.

It's a great advertising tool for small, local businesses with low budgets. They can set parameters so that the only people who see the ad are in a certain location or other specified demographic. So if you own a pizza shop, the only people who see your ad are those who conceivably could be customers - your ad won't display to someone in Sydney if you're located in Melbourne for example. And there are probably tens of thousands of small businesses worldwide doing that every day. Those $ add up very quickly into a lot of revenue for FB.

[Adam_CLO]

I agree with you but only up to a point. Microsoft is quite diversified as to it's revenue base (business and consumer) although 75% still comes from Windows and Office.
http://www.tannerhelland.com/2962/where ... oney-2010/

Google's push into Mobile already brings the same amount of revenue as Facebook makes from all it's ads, even though it is only 10% of their total revenue. My guess is they also have massively valuable IP rights in various sectors. Whether intentional or not free Android apps have proven to be a huge money spinner for them.

http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wir ... er-727452/

Microsoft needs to diversify because both Windows and Office are losing marketshare to mobile and cloud platforms respectively. They are losing a lot of money trying to get Bing's share of search up. It's also questionable whether Windows Phone will be able to compete with iOS and Android despite all the marketing dollars Microsoft is putting behind it.

In Google's case, it seems to make more from iOS devices than it does from its own Android platform. Already several big companies are moving away from licensing Google maps from them, and their biggest worry these days is probably that Facebook gets into search.

[Adam_CLO]

Facebook is a dream for internet marketers. As an example, last month I wanted to see if there was demand for a new product I wanted to sell in Taipei. So I created a Facebook page for it and launched an ad specifically for users in Taipei with a related interest, to see if any users would be interested in this product.

In 4 days, I had 1100 likes on this page. It cost me about $10 NT per like. Since then I've been interacting with these users to create the product for them. I'll happily pay Facebook money for product research like this.

[headhonchoII]

That's interesting information, however I'd like to understand if 'likes' translate into sales.
Facebook has done well so far, but I am personally wary of them now, and you will notice a lot of people are becoming more reticent about posting photos and information online. It doesn't mean they are doomed and they can still grow but much slower . Can they lock people into Facebook rather than using something else, a 'metabook'?

[Indiana]

Okay, but again, maybe this is where I am different to most people.

If they sell data, it's presumably for marketing purposes. If they have an ad on a site, it's presumably for marketing purposes. Yet if a person (including some family members, friends of friends, etc.) sends me an unsolicited email, it goes straight in the trash folder. I get dozens of unsolicited emails per day and they all go straight in the trash folder. I can't remember the last time I clicked an ad on a website and actually bought something that I hadn't already set out to buy.

I still don't really get their business model. It seems like smoke and mirrors to me.

It's about advertising as well the sale of your information. Every time one of your friends adds an app (a game or what have you), they allow companies that own the app access to your profile (what your friends can see). That means not only your name and whatever other details you might have put on there, but your pictures and video as well as your friends list.

All of this may seem harmless right now, but what about the future? Facial recognition programs have already started to become reality. How about when these are used to market to you when you are walking down the street? That's just one possibility.

And that's why Facebook and companies like it are so hugely profitable. They store complete profiles of who you are, what your hobbies and interests are, who you are friends with (and what your friends' interests are), what you look like, etc. and all of this information is priceless to marketing companies now and even moreso in the future as technology develops further.

[headhonchoII]

This is assuming the EU doesn't start enforcing legislation on data mining. In my opinion Google and Facebook have gotten away with blue murder in this regard so far. Wait for the consumer and legislative kickback.

[cfimages]

I just plugged some numbers into Facebook's ad creator and a simple ad targeted to the main markets I license work in, and selecting only people who've listed photography as an interest, gives me a potential reach of 5.7 million people. That's a powerful tool.

[Adam_CLO]

That's interesting information, however I'd like to understand if 'likes' translate into sales.

With Google Ads, I have one shot to sell someone a product. Eg. They click on my ad and visit my site's landing page. If they like what I have there, great. If they don't, I may have lost them forever. With Facebook, in addition to the much more targeted advertising options (eg. by city, by interest, by gender etc.), by getting them to Like a page, I now have the option to communicate with them beyond the first instance. So now, future posts will show up in their stream and I can see which posts get the most responses.

I just plugged some numbers into Facebook's ad creator and a simple ad targeted to the main markets I license work in, and selecting only people who've listed photography as an interest, gives me a potential reach of 5.7 million people. That's a powerful tool.

Exactly. And that type of targeting, in addition to the opportunity to interact with your fans gives them a huge edge over Google. This is why Google is worried and investing so much into Google+.

[GuyInTaiwan]

I guess I'm different to a lot of people then. I'm quite disinterested with, and desensitised to, advertising. I tune out advertising so much that I had to actually go and specifically look for the ads on my Facebook page. I rarely impulse buy, I generally take ages to actually go and buy something (even if I've already decided that I want or need it), and I specifically seek out purveyors of goods (I don't like them seeking me out at all).

Indiana: It's a bit crazy all of that data mining. However, if someone came up to me in the street and tried to sell me something, even if it was something I might be interested in, I'd immediately tell that person to leave me the hell alone and go take a running jump. I'm the kind of person who will deliberately not buy anything from those annoying trucks that drive around with the recorded messages here in Taiwan precisely because they have disturbed my peace.

I'm also the kind of person who really dislikes wearing anything with a logo or brand name on it precisely because I think it's a massive scam that people pay clothing companies to be their walking billboards. Surely, it should be the other way around and these companies should pay ME if they want me to advertise their wares.

To me, it doesn't make any sense at all why people would want to engage in all of this weird economic activity of letting people know everything about themselves so they can open themselves up to additional hucksters. I figure I'm probably every marketing executive's worst nightmare though.