Im certainly not an advertising or media guru, but there surely is value to be extracted from creating platforms where people can interact, share ideas and views, etc etc… and if one subtly and gently add elements to the mix that involves consumerism, then money starts rolling.

Whether any social networking site can be worth billions, can’t express a view since I don’t know who knocks on FB’s doors, ready to buy information or gain access to who knows what is on offer… In fact, it would be interesting to know what the cashflow situation in a co like FB, Friendster etc etc is. Any idea?

Im still getting my hands around blogging, and yes I do have an account of LInkedIn and FB… to see first-hand what it is all about and to test each and every feature thats out there…. well, its one way to seperate the garbish from, maybe other garbish?

So, what’s at the very bottom of it all? Human nature? A need for recognition, a need for a platform? Why, for example, update status and say things like “Im eating ice cream with my grandmother”…Is this a form of cyber exhibitionism?

I wonder if people’s identities in global village has been dwarfed and that they are desperate to be heard in some way or the other? Has nationalism given way to individualism and is the place for its display found in SN sites??

Never forget the human condition — maybe I must go back and read Psychology for Dummies.

Keep writing…

Here is my 2 cents.

Advertising is about impression. This is true for website and TV. Impression itself can not directly guarantee a sale but it does increase the odd. Therefore, any platform that can generate impressions has some value. So popular site has a value, popular TV channel has value…

Then the question become how much it worth when a site has this much viewers. This is a tricky question especially for social website.

I think social website has more adversiting value than tradition media(TV, web1.0) since it has another dimension of marketing channel — word of mouth.

Basially, I think internet itself now is a big social community.

However, Facebook put its mark at $2 billion because of its potential not as a site to paste ads all over but as a tool for market analysis.

Because members/students/employees fill in their favorite music, movies, books, etc. this data can be gathered using a tool such as FaceBook’s “Pulse” (I’m sure MySpace has something similar, that is unpublished):

http://www.facebook.com/pulse.php

Facebook was nearly bought for this very reason. Viacom (owns MTV) has considered placing a bid; until the FaceBook team decided to find a round of investors and expand their service.

Is it really worth trying to make a living worth $2 billion on just ad views and “flyer” sales? Probably not. It (FaceBook) will be sold…. eventually.

This is the model to make money. MySpace plans to follow up soon enough. They’re realizing that, yes, $0.10 CPM ads won’t get them where they really want to be…

Fliers used to work back when you were one of the 3 fliers for the entire school. Now the market is getting a bit saturated. Our school group didn’t get nearly the response it did when we posted an ad last year. People have learned to ignore them, already.

I think advertising is the easy way out for these sites…How should they be making money
-Gathering trend data and selling it to research companies
-Partnering with sites like craigslist to increase traffic and provide an alternative revenue stream (% of paid ads)