facebook Looking into how to charge users

[Owain Taggart]

I could see Facebook charging business pages to make sure their posts, which are often advertisements, get seen. But charging the everyday user? Might as well ask people to leave.

Yea charging everyday users is just downright insane . It's one thing to have to pay yearly -- if you have x amount of friends, like over 100 or so, but doing so in the fashion that is mentioned here sounds rather rediculous.

Another reason for me to get rid of my FB account.

Yeah, that's another thing. I know people who have accounts but are apathetic to it, so doing this now wouldn't be the greatest idea.

Was listening to the news a few nights ago, and they were doing lifestyle stories. There was a 20 year old kid who had told his parents that they were done with facebook (an age group you would expect would be really into it), that they were deleting their account, because they weren't getting anything out of it, because everything on it was me me me. I can see that. So, asking people to pay to post could very well be the final straw for a lot of people.

 

[SeerSGB]

Arrgh, can't remember where it was but there was an article that I read that said something like more and more highschool and early college people are seeing Facebook as "old news" and don't see the point to sharing every little detail of their lives.

 

[propita]

I got off od Facebook before their last migration to whatever it was, timeline? I had hardly anything there and didn't friend too many people. What's the point? I don't need to make general announcements to the world at large.

I email, text, or call my friends. If they're too busy or too far to get together, then I want to hear their voices.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Arrgh, can't remember where it was but there was an article that I read that said something like more and more highschool and early college people are seeing Facebook as "old news" and don't see the point to sharing every little detail of their lives.

Why is there this assumption that having a Facebook account means you have to share every little detail of your life? I don't. Most of my friends don't. Maybe the problem isn't Facebook--it's being friends with morons.

Friends don't let friends be morons.

 

[Kestra]

Arrgh, can't remember where it was but there was an article that I read that said something like more and more highschool and early college people are seeing Facebook as "old news" and don't see the point to sharing every little detail of their lives.

Why is there this assumption that having a Facebook account means you have to share every little detail of your life? I don't. Most of my friends don't. Maybe the problem isn't Facebook--it's being friends with morons.

Friends don't let friends be morons.

Your constant need to share everything on Facebook is one of the reasons I deleted my account. We don't all need to hear about all the sex you're having, Robert.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Arrgh, can't remember where it was but there was an article that I read that said something like more and more highschool and early college people are seeing Facebook as "old news" and don't see the point to sharing every little detail of their lives.

Why is there this assumption that having a Facebook account means you have to share every little detail of your life? I don't. Most of my friends don't. Maybe the problem isn't Facebook--it's being friends with morons.

Friends don't let friends be morons.

Your constant need to share everything on Facebook is one of the reasons I deleted my account. We don't all need to hear about all the sex you're having, Robert.

What is it the Christians say? When you have good news, you feel compelled to share it?

 

[SeerSGB]

99% of my FB account is my wife using it to get in game items for her games; the other 1% is me posting news-links or pissing off my in-laws (the church of Gonk compels you heathen! He discharged for your sins!).

I tell people this when they "Friend" me. I still get people asking "why don't you talk about your life?", "Why don't you post about the kids?". Cause if I wanted you to know I'd call you or send a e-mail.

 

[TremblingBluStar]

I'm guessing this will apply only to the media or people who have facebook pages, such as bands, magazines, newspapers, etc, which post things on regular schedules. I could see the media being required paid access, as it's somewhat aready a form of advertising.

Could be. I can see FB, and possibly Twitter starting to charge fees not for normal, every day users but businesses who use FB and Twitter for marketing. There are countless commercials and products that, where they would once give their website simply list their FB or Twitter page. Why should other companies get that marketing for free?

Of course, it could be that they are already being charged. I'm too lazy to look into it.

 

[wissaboo]

I can't imagine and regular people are interested enough in people seeing their tweets that they would pay for it. This would only appeal to companies. And once people open their facebook and see nothing but ads they will stop signing on.

 

[Amaris]

Eh, if they start charging, I've got Twitter, my blog, my message board, my websites, and a whole host of other avenues. Facebook has some nice things, but it wouldn't be the end of the world if I left, or if it closed.

 

[Owain Taggart]

I'm guessing this will apply only to the media or people who have facebook pages, such as bands, magazines, newspapers, etc, which post things on regular schedules. I could see the media being required paid access, as it's somewhat aready a form of advertising.

Could be. I can see FB, and possibly Twitter starting to charge fees not for normal, every day users but businesses who use FB and Twitter for marketing. There are countless commercials and products that, where they would once give their website simply list their FB or Twitter page. Why should other companies get that marketing for free?

Of course, it could be that they are already being charged. I'm too lazy to look into it.

Haha yeah, that would seem the most logical to me. It would more or less be an extension of what's already there.

 

[Starkers]

Arrgh, can't remember where it was but there was an article that I read that said something like more and more highschool and early college people are seeing Facebook as "old news" and don't see the point to sharing every little detail of their lives.

Why is there this assumption that having a Facebook account means you have to share every little detail of your life? I don't. Most of my friends don't. Maybe the problem isn't Facebook--it's being friends with morons.

Friends don't let friends be morons.

Yeah I thought Twitter was more suited to sharing every detail of your life, which is one reason I don't like it. Most of my friends are pretty sporadic on Facebook, as am I, I usually comment on something every day but don't always post something myself every day, or even every couple of days.

 

[PKTrekGirl]

I'm guessing this will apply only to the media or people who have facebook pages, such as bands, magazines, newspapers, etc, which post things on regular schedules. I could see the media being required paid access, as it's somewhat aready a form of advertising.

Could be. I can see FB, and possibly Twitter starting to charge fees not for normal, every day users but businesses who use FB and Twitter for marketing. There are countless commercials and products that, where they would once give their website simply list their FB or Twitter page. Why should other companies get that marketing for free?

Of course, it could be that they are already being charged. I'm too lazy to look into it.

They are already being charged. I work for a public company that has a FB page, and I work down the hall from marketing, so I've seen some of this. Can't speak about all the ways they might charge corporate users...but I do know that they charge this pubic company daily, based on the number of hits to their page that day. So after my company made a huge technological announcement, our FB expense went up quite a bit, since a lot more people where hitting the page. Have no idea if, in addition to this charge, there is some sort of base fee we have to pay, just to be on there...

 

[Owain Taggart]

I'm guessing this will apply only to the media or people who have facebook pages, such as bands, magazines, newspapers, etc, which post things on regular schedules. I could see the media being required paid access, as it's somewhat aready a form of advertising.

Could be. I can see FB, and possibly Twitter starting to charge fees not for normal, every day users but businesses who use FB and Twitter for marketing. There are countless commercials and products that, where they would once give their website simply list their FB or Twitter page. Why should other companies get that marketing for free?

Of course, it could be that they are already being charged. I'm too lazy to look into it.

They are already being charged. I work for a public company that has a FB page, and I work down the hall from marketing, so I've seen some of this. Can't speak about all the ways they might charge corporate users...but I do know that they charge this pubic company daily, based on the number of hits to their page that day. So after my company made a huge technological announcement, our FB expense went up quite a bit, since a lot more people where hitting the page. Have no idea if, in addition to this charge, there is some sort of base fee we have to pay, just to be on there...

Ahh, thanks for the info, PK. It's nice to hear from the other side

 

[Robert Maxwell]

I'm guessing this will apply only to the media or people who have facebook pages, such as bands, magazines, newspapers, etc, which post things on regular schedules. I could see the media being required paid access, as it's somewhat aready a form of advertising.

Could be. I can see FB, and possibly Twitter starting to charge fees not for normal, every day users but businesses who use FB and Twitter for marketing. There are countless commercials and products that, where they would once give their website simply list their FB or Twitter page. Why should other companies get that marketing for free?

Of course, it could be that they are already being charged. I'm too lazy to look into it.

They are already being charged. I work for a public company that has a FB page, and I work down the hall from marketing, so I've seen some of this. Can't speak about all the ways they might charge corporate users...but I do know that they charge this pubic company daily, based on the number of hits to their page that day. So after my company made a huge technological announcement, our FB expense went up quite a bit, since a lot more people where hitting the page. Have no idea if, in addition to this charge, there is some sort of base fee we have to pay, just to be on there...

Following on from this, GM has announced they are eliminating their $40M Facebook ad budget.

Personally, I never really go to corporate Facebook pages, and I can't think of a single Facebook ad that I've ever clicked. Most of them are just terrible, advertising dating sites and flat bellies and crappy Facebook games. Things I just do not give a shit about. Any money spent advertising things to me on Facebook is an utter waste because all the ads presented to me are terrible.

 

[SeerSGB]

Another kick to the nuts before the IPO

Half of Americans think Facebook is a passing fad, according to the results of a new Associated Press-CNBC poll. And, in the run-up to the social network's initial public offering of stock, half of Americans also say the social network's expected asking price is too high.

As for how Facebook makes most of its money —selling ads— 57 percent of users say they never click on them or on Facebook's sponsored content. About another quarter say they rarely do.

I typically click on two kind of ad: Stuff for Nerf Give-Aways or Movie promotions if it's a film I'm not already keeping an eye out for. So that means in a month I MIGHT click 3 or 4 ads, tops. I've noticed to a drop off in a lot of professional pages (pages for authors and the like) having posts. Twitter is more active on that front, or they're posting on their own sites/blogs and not on FB.

As for it being a fad: it's not...well at least social-media isn't. If Facebook goes forward with trying to charge typical users for posting or expanded features and upping the cost to commercial users. Then they're going to go the way of MySpace.

That's the problem with giving shit away for free for so long: You try to charge people, they'll just walk away.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Facebook has basically topped out in terms of their popularity. They are a bit like Google's search engine business. They're #1 and no one can touch them. Sure, they have (largely irrelevant) competitors, but for the most part they have nowhere to go but down; they've already hit the peak of their potential popularity.

 

[SeerSGB]

Google's another one that's in for a hard fall in the next handful of years. They reason they haven't before now is they moved away from search engines only and started offering cloud-based office products and stuff like Android and Chrome OS. For the moment, they're cheap and easy to use and people like cheap and easy.

If I was investing in Facebook, I'd say "short term", make my money and get out in a few months. They're going to have to make changes that the users aren't going to be happy with to make the investors happy and that's going to hurt their returns.

 

[Robert Maxwell]

Google has long been envious of Facebook's "stickiness"--its ability to keep you on the site for a substantial length of time. Obviously, search engines are on the very low end of the stickiness continuum. You search for what you want, click links and move on. They expanded that into other logical areas, like Google Maps. They provide quick and easy access to information, which is their strength. GMail was bold move that succeeded mainly because they did something no one else would dare: offered gigabytes of free email storage, back when sites like Hotmail and Yahoo gave you a paltry 5 megabytes. The superior email search features weren't a bad bonus.

But now they're obsessed with "social," having missed the boat on things like Facebook and Twitter, and they've failed repeatedly. They first went too far afield with Wave, which I don't think anyone ever fully understood; then they went too simple with Buzz, turning your GMail account into a social networking portal, and there was a huge backlash over that; they finally got something right with Google+, then Facebook ripped off the "circles" concept and took away the one thing that was unique about G+.

I like G+, but I admit I rarely use it because very few of my friends are on it. That's probably the same excuse everyone uses, eh?

I don't think Google will ever compete with Facebook on the social networking side. They should focus on developing and improving their cloud services, and finding innovative ways to tie them into the rest of your Google account. Android has also been a very good platform for them in terms of market penetration, but it doesn't seem like they've had as much success monetizing it as they'd hoped.

One thing they both have in common is that they will probably remain on top of their respective markets as long as they don't make any big stumbles in those markets. As long as Google doesn't fuck up search, they don't give an opening for anyone else to jump in. Likewise with Facebook and the social networking experience. Facebook has dramatically changed how their service works a lot more than Google has, though, so I view them as much higher risk for being toppled in the next few years. There's always the chance of a crippling misstep.

 

[Owain Taggart]

Could be. I can see FB, and possibly Twitter starting to charge fees not for normal, every day users but businesses who use FB and Twitter for marketing. There are countless commercials and products that, where they would once give their website simply list their FB or Twitter page. Why should other companies get that marketing for free?

Of course, it could be that they are already being charged. I'm too lazy to look into it.

They are already being charged. I work for a public company that has a FB page, and I work down the hall from marketing, so I've seen some of this. Can't speak about all the ways they might charge corporate users...but I do know that they charge this pubic company daily, based on the number of hits to their page that day. So after my company made a huge technological announcement, our FB expense went up quite a bit, since a lot more people where hitting the page. Have no idea if, in addition to this charge, there is some sort of base fee we have to pay, just to be on there...

Following on from this, GM has announced they are eliminating their $40M Facebook ad budget.

Personally, I never really go to corporate Facebook pages, and I can't think of a single Facebook ad that I've ever clicked. Most of them are just terrible, advertising dating sites and flat bellies and crappy Facebook games. Things I just do not give a shit about. Any money spent advertising things to me on Facebook is an utter waste because all the ads presented to me are terrible.

Yeah, same here. I guess there are some companies that are realizing that people aren't going to view the ads.

Facebook games are ads in a way as the whole reason for their existence is to gather contacts and have you invite people, etc. Some of them, or maybe most of them are built around the mechanic of friending people in order to have advantages. Have a friend who joined facebook just to play a game because it was the only way. It encouraged friending to grow your army, or some such. Well, he was mass friending, and apparently Facebook had a problem with that and banned him. Well, I have to say that if they have that mechanism in place to begin with, how can you not expect for that to happen? Pretty shitty situation.