Monday, January 19, 2009

If Facebook Where a Country?

If Facebook were a country it would be the 8th largest on the planet and would be bigger than Japan, Russia, the UK and most of the developed world. Its 54.5m unique users a day is the equivalent of everyone in the UK logging on every day.

The rise of social networks is so far the phenomena of the 21st century but where are they going next? Where is the money? Can we all subscribe to many networks or do we focus just on one? Is there room for more or are we at saturation point? When does a generalist loose appeal to a specialist networked community?

The trick is obviously to turn the eyeballs into advertising revenues, but with such a large and diverse membership, are global brands the only ones that will work? Can list management offer sales based on preferences? Individual companies can mine into the community to promote themselves but can do this without paying the service provider, so again its down to how they make money?

The one thing that is certain the consumer is unlikely to pay to be a member so the money has to come from somewhere. Unlike countries Facebook and the other networks can't nationalise the Banks or print money.

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