[addicted]

Facebook has 3 properties which have more users than Twitter (Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram). Facebook itself has more active users than Google and has another property, Whatapp which is also close to or just over that billion user mark.

And they are already reporting profits.

I doubt they will go the way of Twitter.

[toomuchtodo]

Nothing lasts forever in tech. How will they monetize Instagram and WhatsApp? Don't show me users. Show me profits from those users if you want to count them.

[addicted]

The easiest solution would be to expand Whatsapp to support mobile payments. A lot of commerce in countries in Africa and Asia is already conducted over the phone using SMS and other similar technologies, and FB could fairly easily have Whatsapp play that role and earn a decent chunk of money.

[muzz]

True, but thus far Facebook has responded well to existential threats by buying companies like Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.

[Apocryphon]

Is that how it works now? Companies with great products but not a sustainable long-term biz plan exit by getting bought out, and larger companies with a greater product but also no far-long-term biz plan buy those companies and survive by having them as fallback products?

[Scoundreller]

Sounds like the beer industry. Five companies own half the world market. And new breweries are easy to start. If yours gains traction, you get acquired.

And that's in an industry where the products are close to fungible, without depending on network effects.

[thrownaway2424]

People go to the store and exchange money for beer. You seem to be missing the point.

[hugh4]

I take offence to the notion that beers are fungible.

[toomuchtodo]

It's acquihires all the way down.

[kkhire]

That's how most industries are. Pharma/biotech is all about this

[Apocryphon]

I guess the one upside about tech is that ideally you're in a field with technology that can tie together disparate products into one ecosystem, so it's not simply about making megacorps that are essentially giant holding companies that own random products and patents.

On the other hand, one binding ecosystem with disparate products can easily become either walled gardens or badly-fragmented loose confederations, so it's not the best situation, either.

[bdcravens]

Inserting ad images into Instagram would be fairly trivial. Given the large number of celebs on Instagram, shared revenue on product placement is another option. Promotion of high profile Instagram accounts (say, a new movie) etc

[mbrock]

Instagram already does this since a couple of weeks ago.

[kelseydh]

If you think profits are still the driving force of what matters, then you will never build an Instagram or WhatsApp at the exit values they achieved.

This sounds like 90's bubble talk, but "eyeballs" do matter. Investors and the market care about the current social value of a product in terms of the value / growth of their user base.

Ask many millenials/teens and they say they more meaningfully interact with Instagram than Facebook. That fact about social trends is worth its weight in gold in terms of its user base.

[toomuchtodo]

> Ask many millenials/teens and they say they more meaningfully interact with Instagram than Facebook. That fact about social trends is worth its weight in gold in terms of its user base.

Ask how many millenials or teens have bought something or spent money because of an ad on Facebook or Instagram.

[i386]

That is the exact cargo cult bullshit thinking that got Twitter and many other companies into this situation in the first place.

[kelseydh]

Was Google cargo culting by turning down efforts by its early investors to have them show banner ads like Yahoo?

Their willingness to hold off for many many years without revenue was now brilliant in hindsight, given they found a much better way to make money on advertising than how Yahoo ever imagined it. But they wouldn't have got there if they caved into short-term thinking obsessed investors who think you need to post immediate revenue.

Twitter's issues are more to do with a lack of product innovation or evolution, not that it has gotten too large. Its problem is that it has gotten too large without expanding its product base to support or justify that growth.

[knorby]

Facebook (the service) itself can maintain the company as is, but they have ads on Instagram at least. FB currently makes several dollars per user per quarter in revenue (or profits), with that value depending on what number you go by, but the smallest number you could pick is 1B+. No business is guaranteed to last forever, but there is really no reason to think that they have any real trouble ahead.

[eva1984]

Instagram is pretty trivial: ads. AFAIK, their user base is largely female, and this catalog of inventory is very much desired by advertisers.

In terms of Whatsapp, micro-transaction maybe? That I am not quite sure, it is not going to be as straight-forward as Instagram.

[forgetsusername]

At some point the "throw ads in it" model is going to stop working.

[joosters]

Whatsapp used to be monetised before Facebook bought them, so in theory it shouldn't be that difficult to go back...

[meeper16]

Facebooks acquisitions of users overlap. Think about that. They have nowhere near as many users as Google.

[mbesto]

Massive profits in fact:

http://www.wikinvest.com/stock/Facebook_(FB)/Data/EBITDA