Why are the facebook guys worth roughly $10Billion?

[Zippy]

That's because they rush changes out. In their own words at a recruitment event "changes you make this afternoon could be affecting hundreds of millions of users the next morning".

Adversely ...

I don't see the attraction of Facebook and being an old-school IT bod I'm deeply suspicious of what would happen to my data if I did sign up. I might in the future, but using fictitious details.

Having said all that, and bearing in mind everyone on the Jeremy Kyle show has an account, if was flogging DNA kits or Burberry I'd be right in there.

[d000hg]

As an IT person, I'm amazed how wobbly their site is after every change / upgrade...

That's because they rush changes out. In their own words at a recruitment event "changes you make this afternoon could be affecting hundreds of millions of users the next morning".

[Muttley08]

Think Facebook will turn out to be a fad at some point...once they lose their cool and get in with the government...the valuation is a bubble I'd say.

As an IT person, I'm amazed how wobbly their site is after every change / upgrade...

[AtW]

Apparently they are pulling in like $400 mln of ad money this year...

[n5gooner]

We use google addwords, and spend about £500 pw on PPC.

We've started using FB adverts, and although get hits through it, its not as targeted as google is. We use PPC on FB, as PPM worked out expensive for us, and it is more for building brand awareness.

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[northernladuk]

Forget advertising... think what they have... They have possibly the biggest single collection of users anywhere. Imagine what they can do with that. They can start using it like a bank/creditcard/payment method. Tesco has a shop written in to it's Facebook page. You go on there do your shopping and pay with Facebook Pounds. They can have almost like an internet in and internet. They can start an email system, shopping yadda yadda all within facebook..

They could make Facebook an operating system instead of iPad or something so you truely have your own personal computer or for people that can't use computers and so on. The sky is the limit for ideas like this.

Add something like a second life app that you can live IN facebook possibly..

You could play games through FB platform as some companies are already doing, streaming the game not having it loaded locally...

The limits are endless when you have that many people hooked in to a single system. THAT is what is worth the money, not what they have now. They have unlimited earning potential in the future.

[Jog On]

Have you used the advertising? Have considered it for one project. PPC or PPM?

Adwords I used a while back but hjaven't for a while. Although I'm thinking of using this £75 one before it expires

facebook never used so can't comment :/

[d000hg]

Facebook has about 500million users, and that is over double what it was a year ago - I talked to some of their guys at a conference as they'd just hit 200m. So 1 billion users might be a safe prediction, $10bn values each user at $10. Whether that's a lot or not, who knows. But Facebook allows very targeted advertising, IIRC, based on your profile.

[Pondlife]

Ah, apparently their advertising revenue will hit the $1Billion mark for 2010.

[administrator]

I think their advertising is working. It seems to be outperforming Google Adwords who are now sending me £75 vouchers in the post instead of £25-£50 ones.

Have you used the advertising? Have considered it for one project. PPC or PPM?

[Jog On]

I think their advertising is working. It seems to be outperforming Google Adwords who are now sending me £75 vouchers in the post instead of £25-£50 ones.

[Pondlife]

I understand that their site attracts millions of vistitors daily and that they have access to information that would make any ad exec like there was no tomorrow BUT AFAIK they are not using this info and are not charging the millions who use it. I have never clicked on an ad link from there and it doesn't seem particularly targeted other than by country.

So why is it worth so much? Or does the underpants gnomes' business model work if you have enough hype?

TIA