[rehack]

But I think, its now going to be all the more tough for them to figure out how to improve their ARPU dramatically, as they don't have the benefit of obscurity.

For example, even slight change to the feeds, like inserting what vaguely seems like an Ad, raises a huge uproar from people.

In contrast Google had got Adwords figured out (but it was not as widely known) before their IPO.

[9oliYQjP]

Changes to Facebook are like fluctuations in gas prices though. People grumble and complain, then just go ahead and don't change their habit.

I'm pretty conspiracy-theorish on the whole Facebook thing. A part of me wants to believe Mark managed to hack the entire system. He got the maximum amount of money out of the IPO to build up a huge cash reserve for his company. He made his big acquisition before the IPO; future acquisitions may be harder now that the share price is what it is. But he has also sent a shock wave through the entire eco-system. If things cool off a bit, he'll be able to find more talent to work at Facebook at more reasonable prices. He won't have current employees looking to run off and start a bubbly startup. It just seems like a brilliant hack :) I'm probably reading far too much into the whole situation.

During this cooling off period, Facebook can disregard their short term share price and experiment wildly until they figure out something that works. There's not an investor alive who thinks there's anybody more capable than Mark Zuckerberg for Facebook CEO. Nobody will oust him in the short- to medium-term.

Facebook is a very much in the same position that Amazon.com was in around 2001. They have the means to figure this out. Other startups trying to follow suit don't have this luxury any more. But Facebook sure does.

EDIT: For context, this was a contrarian opinion of Amazon.com in 2001 http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2001/...

[rehack]

>Changes to Facebook are like fluctuations in gas prices though. People grumble and complain, then just go ahead and don't change their habit.

IMO, its like this. We spend a lot of time here on HN. Just like a whole lot more people do on Facebook. But we come to HN for a specific purpose to engage in these kind of discussions. Just like it will be difficult for PG to convert this into something else which makes more money (PG gave the example of a market place), I think it will be no simpler for Mark Zuckerberg.

PS: This was my take on FB, before the IPO http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3949048

[kamaal]

FB has insane guaranteed users. Imagine a 'search the internet' or 'search videos' bar somewhere in the Facebook homepage.

Even Google knows that's dangerous.

[rehack]

One's local circle of friends on FB makes for perhaps 1%, in terms of its quality & value, of the overall number of signals(200?), that Google uses for its search.

Just like we come to HN for discussions, which our social circle on FB is not able to satisfy. Similarly, people will continue to go to the best search engine for searching for information.

Even today, if you want to get an overall sense of what people are thinking in general, you go to twitter search. Facebook you mostly search for persons, and what they are doing. It will be very difficult to change that.

PS: I realize my first para is speculative. And the rest is opinion.

[kamaal]

>>Similarly, people will continue to go to the best search engine for searching for information.

There is no reason why Facebook can't become that. If Apple can make phones and Google can make phone OS. If Microsoft can make gaming consoles.

There is nothing stopping FB from doing it.

[rehack]

Yes, that's possible. But then it will be doing something new and different, isn't it? And it has to be more based on the spending power it has. And not related to its social network power.

Google put G+ on its home page, with not much success. Similarly, why should FB get a leverage out of just putting search on its home page. Unless the search is really better than Google's. What advantage FB has over say blekko in competing in search?

[grkballer44]

FB already got their $16 billion. If your in it for the long term, uproar away that nest egg should be able to last a while. Check ins, ads, app platform, lots of monetization strategies. The only people burned are short term investors who buy in at a bad time. FB ONLY potential problem is losing RELEVANCE. You don't lose users by not monetizing mobile, but you can lose users by monetizing mobile however. Short/steady wins the race, especially with 16 billion in the bank

[kawera]

Many ebay users also use FB. And a lot of FB users use Paypal. Think about it.

Ads, movies, music, even games aren't really what will help then make huge amounts of money. Transactions will.

[rehack]

Agree transactions will make money for somebody.

Let me take just take one example of 'movies' from your sentence. Would you think of Youtube or Facebook as a natural choice for watching paid videos/movies?

Likewise, IMO, there will be specific things for specific purposes.

I will proffer that the specific purpose for FB usage are things like vanity and managing one's image (how one wants to be seen in their social circle).

Recently I am seeing some 'xyz watched some <abc video> on Social cam' kind of statuses on FB, of some xyzs who I am sure have not noticed such broadcast to their friends. These kind of mistakes, might just result in some very embarrassed and angry people.

(Am I the only one scared of clicking on anything, on any web page on the Internet, that is wrapped in 'Facebook blue' ?)

I believe the privacy concerns of these kind are going to spread to a wider base of people.

Edit: rephrase

[kamaal]

>>Recently I am seeing some 'xyz watched some <abc video> on Social cam' kind of statuses on FB, of some xyzs who I am sure have not noticed such broadcast to their friends. These kind of mistakes, might just result in some very embarrassed and angry people.

This is true. Since I observed this. I take care to log out of Gmail/Facebook/Twitter once I am done with them. And I never browse anything when I'm logged into into one of those sites.

>>Am I the only one scared of clicking on anything, on any web page on the Internet, that is wrapped in 'Facebook blue' ?

A lot of people are scared. I had to call friend to tell him personally that the <abc video> he watched that is showing up as the status might be embarrassing and he had to login and delete that from this status.

[rehack]

I don't logout, but try to open any links from within FB in 'incognito' mode.

[cgmorton]

There's a lovely browser addon called 'Facebook Disconnect' than blocks all third-party calls to the Facebook API. Available in Chrome and Firefox, and probably others.

[hackinthebochs]

>Likewise, IMO, there will be specific things for specific purposes.

It would do techies a lot of good to realize this is not true for most people. People do not have "specific sites for specific purposes". To most people the web browser is the internet. The distinction between different pages is fuzzy at best. And at this point facebook itself is the internet to a lot people. If facebook offered a compelling X experience (X can be anything here), people absolutely will use it. Do not fool yourself into thinking most internet users compartmentalize their internet usage. They absolutely do not. That is the power of facebook.

[rehack]

Replying to both your comments here.

Agree on your point that barrier to entry is higher for G+ than FB Search (if it launches).

Regarding Search: I would ask, how many people overall use Google search and how many use Facebook in the world. I would guess that the number is sort of equivalent, with google search users being slightly more than FB users.

And if that's the case, then what is to make people not use google search and shift to FB search (which is yet to be, BTW!), unless the quality is vastly superior. Which in my opinion is not an easy thing to achieve.

Also regarding any generic feature X, I doubt if people who are very new to Internet can start flashing their credit cards, if FB asks them to. Yes, they could be perhaps made to click on any thing, which again means just Ads. But, even in this, I think, we could be underestimating the intelligence of an avg. Internet user.

Also Google Adwords has a strong knowledge of user intent. And hence the Ads are useful for sellers. Over here, they are like TV Ads, but with a difference. And that difference is they can be ignored.

edit: minor rephrase

[hackinthebochs]

The reason that people would potentially shift to a facebook search would be for simplicity. Instead of having to go to google.com they can just search in a box that's on the page they're already on. Of course, this isn't so easy anymore as there are many ways to search google now. So I don't think just having an internet search box on the page is enough. But I don't think it has to be much more. Just the fact that you could search while remaining on facebook might be compelling enough for a non-trivial amount of users. Also a "socially informed" search could be a key feature, even if its trivially implemented. Just having a "trusted" friend's icon next to certain results could seem useful to a naive user.

The point is, I don't think facebook has to do anything fundamentally better than google to win many converts. The results just can't be obviously worse. And for what most people search for, I don't think this is hard. Celebrities, sports, products, etc; I'd say that's low hanging fruit considering the amount of brainpower facebook has on its payroll. The long tail search that google is famous for isn't likely to matter to the facebook user targetted here.

An obvious case study to a company leveraging their userbase to grow out of their original business model is Amazon with its kindle. It was a great product certainly, but the benefit having it advertised on the top of their landing page can't be overstated. So many people are intent on putting facebook in a social box and saying "well they can't monetize social so they're doomed" is short-sighted. Social is just the hook, there are literally endless ways they can monetize all those eyes.

[rehack]

Okay, looks like we will continue to have difference of opinion on this one. But nice getting to know your thoughts. Hopefully continue later some time ...