Monetize

So, saw The Social Network over the weekend. It was alright. There's nothing actually wrong with the movie; I just didn't find it all that exciting. Parts are cool, parts are dull, and overall it's a decent movie. Timberlake as Shawn Parker is awesome, though.

The problem with something like Facebook is: how do you make money? The only asset the company really has is the personal information of everyone that has signed up for it. Right now they get by on ads, but as I said before I think that's ultimately a losing deal. How, then, can the company make money?

They can't sell the data - that kind of breach of trust would instantly kill them; just as Blizzard, who tried to roll out a "real id" system earlier this year to their World of Warcraft subscribers and ended up facing what can only be described as an insurrection: a single thread on the subject reached quite literally hundreds of thousands of posts in a matter of hours, and Blizzard was forced to severely curtail their plans. So, sale of info is out.

Likewise, you can't just charge for the service. Something most old-model business folk don't understand is that "free" is a big part of why Facebook has so many people. Students - even college students - likely wouldn't pay for such a service at this point. Putting the content behind a paywall would be more disasterous than selling data: they'd likely lose 99+% of their client base overnight.

Could they offer some services for pay while leaving others free? Maybe; it's still a fine line to walk, and most of the services people would be willing to pay for as "defaults" are already there (and thus can't really get stuck behind the paywall): email, chat, searches, etc. And what would you charge for? Custom shopping? That's basically advertising. Microtransactions for games and such? That could generate some revenue, but it'd be mostly for the gaming companies. Maybe Facebook could become a content delivery system and charge developers instead of users - for example, charge Farmville a fee for every person who plays it or some such. That's really just a modification of the ad business, but there are lot of people trying to get into content delivery.

The point is, having 500 million subscribers doesn't mean much when the whole model is based on free services and privacy. Generating income in spite of those limits is tricky.

(Random note: the new Terry Pratchett book "I Shall Wear Midnight" isn't one of his funniest ones, but it's still pretty good. I read it in about 4 hours, which means it's probably 300-400 pages.)

(... and yes, that means I read about 100 pages an hour, usually with 80-85% retention. I'm also dyslexic. No, none of it makes sense; you should be used to that by now.)

In other news, I officially start looking for a job today. No, I'm not laid off or anything, but I know it's coming down the line: upper management is doing everything they can to minimize the location where I work. They've already transferred most of the central services out of the building, so it's just a matter of time. I've already given an informal application at one place where a friend works, but I haven't hear anything from them so I have to assume either it's been indefinitely delayed or that I'm not suitable. So, on to other options.

I *hate* looking for jobs. Interviews are mostly about sales, and I hate sales. I just want to be able to walk into an interview and say, "I know this, this, and this, I learn pretty quickly, and I'm loyal enough to have been working at the same place for over 12 years." That's not how the world works, unfortunately.

Three weeks until Blizzcon. For those of you who don't drink the kool-aid, Blizzcon is a convention held in Anaheim by Blizzard to talk about their games: Warcraft, Starcraft, and Diablo, and now apparently some new title coming out. It's actually pretty fun. I know most people think MMO and RPG gamers are weird introverted socially-inept freaks, but - wait, actually, most of that is true. Except - and here's the interesting part - gamers aren't socially inept around other gamers, just around people who don't get it. Regardless, Blizzcon ends up being fun, and even if I'm not playing WoW anymore, I play StarCraft 2 most nights and will probably try Diablo 3 when it comes out.

Besides which, I get to spend a weekend hanging out with my best friend who I don't get to see very often even if he only lives a mile away. Can't beat that. Speaking of, go check out www.housepandas.com and marvel at his pandaness. Er, pandidity. Panditude? Something like that.

Anyway, enough for now.