On Oct 9, 2008, at 5:27 PM, Jared Spool wrote:
What I've been praying for, to learn what Facebook's business plan
is, will be finally answered!
In 3 years, once Mark Zuckerberg figures it out.
http://is.gd/3MSY
So... I have to wonder out loud: Why not just charge $9/month for a
Facebook account? I know that's so 1992 with an that oh-so-dated
America Online model, but hey... At some point, we'll all finally get
past the silly notion that stuff should always be free. Advertising
can only support so many businesses in this space.
Sure, they'd piss people off (too bad, I say) and lose a bunch in the
process. But if they retained only 25% of a user base of around 50M
that are willing to pay $9/month or $99/year, that's 12.5M users, and
a yearly revenue of something like $1.2B a year. The question is more
would they be able to keep 10M to 12M people paying $9 a month, I think.
Blizzard has around that for World of Warcraft paying $15 a month, and
it's just a game. I think Facebook would be able to pull it off.
If Facebook or Google started charging for accounts (Google then gets
money for its applications like Docs, Spreadsheets and such), it would
open the door for everyone in the software business to get back to
having real business models that aren't built out of straw during a
fire season waiting for it all to go up in smoke at a moment's notice.
--
Andrei Herasimchuk
Principal, Involution Studios
innovating the digital world
e. [EMAIL PROTECTED]
c. +1 408 306 6422
________________________________________________________________
Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)!
To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe
List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines
List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
