They probably make most of their money by selling their users personal
details
Yeah, it's primarily from ads, with a few bucks brought in from purchased games and such. No doubt, it's an advertiser's dream. Think about how hard they work to conduct targeted advertising using other media and techniques, and then look at what Facebook provides them: subjects who are willing and
even anxious (in many cases) to give their real names, their professions, education and income level, address, phone number, likes and dislikes, their circle of "friends" (that can also be harvested), how they feel about their job or their boss, pictures of themselves and their friends (who can now be identified using these new facial recognition applications), etc.
From time to time, I have to do surveys as I'm beginning or ending a project. Getting people to answer a survey, even when it's anonymous, is like pulling teeth. And remember back to the census a couple of years ago, when you had all the wingnuts and paranoid schizos hiding under their beds when the mailman brought their census forms. You even had a sitting member of Congress, Michele Bachmann, telling people not to answer the (basic) questions on the form. But then you look at Facebook. And then you realize that a good many of those same crazies have Facebook pages - including Michele Bachmann!!! Considering how Americans yammer on about their "freedoms", their privacy, yadda, yadda, yadda... Facebook has got to be the most ingenious
long con in our history!
So I give it to Markie Mark for providing a "free" service and getting people to share all of that personal information, and (somehow) making them also think that it's
really private. :rofl2: Even when their jobs are on the line, I can't get people to open up about what they had for breakfast. So he's a smart, smart boy. And as I said, I think his company is worth a lot of money (easily in the billions, just based on current revenues and projected future growth). I just don't think it's realistic to value it at anything close to $100 billion. 20-25 times earnings? Yeah.... sure. 50 times earnings? No. That's just another bubble forming. Him no get my money when him go public. :nono:
