I can pay facebook $12.20 to force my friends to see my post. It's called highlight.

[NLS]

I really need to get around to deleting my facebook. It is just convenient to keep in touch with friends in other states.

How would you live without Spotify and the other miscellaneous happy apps?

Spotify? I've been using that for 3 years, and even though it's connected to my facebook account, I've set it to not auto-update my feed on every goddamn song I listen to. Maybe I don't get this, but how important is facebook to get spotify working?

 

[Latinidiot]

I have only 100 fb friends, and I am more than prepared to cull that list if one of my contacts feels the need to grab my attention by kicking my internet-door down, and shouting into my internet-ear.

 

[tomtom94]

Last month a Starbucks status update appeared in my news feed despite me not physically Liking them.

Bleh.

 

[Risingblade]

For trolling and advertising I would assume.

 

[teebeeohh]

is this because every who bought facebook stock noticed they don't exactly have a business model and they now have to prove they can make money?

 

[geK0]

I don't have Facebook, but I have to wonder who'd be dumb enough to actually pay for this kind of crap. ...not that it'd surprise me to learn that there are people dumb enough to pay for this kind of crap.

I thought the same thing about Farmville, but Zynga seems to be doing pretty well for themselves : \

 

[Supertegwyn]

What is with that $0.20? I get making it $12.00, but what does that extra $0.20 achieve?

That bothers me.

 

[Ravinoff]

Holy balls, what happened?!

What da fuck?

Should this be news? Or is it an isolated hiccup that isn't worth noticing...

If I learned anything from basic match and statistics, is that diagram doesn't look healthy.

Edit: Thanks for the update fellas, no need to quote me now. I haven't really been focusing on International news as of late. I'm just surprised I didn't hear of this here until now.

It's basically a matter of people realizing Facebook has no actual buisness (read: money-making) value. The stock massively hyped, and it crashed.

 

[lacktheknack]

What is with that $0.20? I get making it $12.00, but what does that extra $0.20 achieve?

That bothers me.

Tax coverage, probably.

 

[Shivarage]

I've never wanted to call someone "gay" that badly before...

 

[Shivarage]

I can see Facebook maki

ng money off of this. And honestly I don't really mind...but $12.20? Seriously? That is batshit insane. They would make a hell of a lot more charging like $0.99. Then again having more people willing to do it would sort of negate the effect, but damn. Anything more than $10 is fifty miles passed crazytown.

Don't you know charging people less only brings in less money..?

Except when it comes to higher rate and corporation taxes in which case it obviously brings in much much more despite no evidence to support such a claim at all

captcha: describe this brand: it doesn't look like anything

 

[Thespian]

Geez everyone seems to think Facebook is like, the spawn of satan now.

A bit money-grabbing? Sure. But it doesn't really negatively impact anyone. Don't like it, don't use it.

Sure it means you'll see more crappy statuses... But my news feed is always crammed with shit I don't care for. Such is the way of the world.

But yeah, Facebook is a business. And if I ran that business and some employee was like "Hey there's this feature that takes nothing away from people's experiences but will totally buy you a new yacht if it goes through" I would totally implement the shit out of that feature. And promote that guy. And have an awesome sex party on my new yacht. And I'd name the yacht "Mr. President" because it'd be really cool to name a yacht that.

My point is that I like facebook. It makes a lot of socializing easy and there's lots of fun things that I really enjoy.

Then again, it's popular, so natch the internet would hate it.

shitbook

Really, sir? That is what you came up with? Shitbook?

 

[Da Orky Man]

You think this is because [a href=https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=0&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1338580800000&chddm=3910&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NASDAQ:FB&ntsp=0]there doing so well on the stock market[/a]?

Holy balls, what happened?!

By the Emperor's golden testes, how the hell did that happen?!

 

[Nouw]

Actually on mine it says pay 2.00 USD.

 

[Strain42]

I can pay Facebook absolutely nothing and just move on with my life.

I think I'll do just that.

 

[jpoon]

Geez everyone seems to think Facebook is like, the spawn of satan now.

A bit money-grabbing? Sure. But it doesn't really negatively impact anyone. Don't like it, don't use it.

Sure it means you'll see more crappy statuses... But my news feed is always crammed with shit I don't care for. Such is the way of the world.

But yeah, Facebook is a business. And if I ran that business and some employee was like "Hey there's this feature that takes nothing away from people's experiences but will totally buy you a new yacht if it goes through" I would totally implement the shit out of that feature. And promote that guy. And have an awesome sex party on my new yacht. And I'd name the yacht "Mr. President" because it'd be really cool to name a yacht that.

My point is that I like facebook. It makes a lot of socializing easy and there's lots of fun things that I really enjoy.

Then again, it's popular, so natch the internet would hate it.

shitbook

Really, sir? That is what you came up with? Shitbook?

Why I sure did, copyrighted and everything...so don't be stealing it! xD

I would also say it fits because a massive majority of all that exists on there is true to the word.

 

[Thespian]

Really, sir? That is what you came up with? Shitbook?

Why I sure did, copyrighted and everything...so don't be stealing it! xD

I would also say it fits because a massive majority of all that exists on there is true to the word.[/quote]

Perhaps... But I do believe FaecesBook is much more cutting

 

[CrystalShadow]

You think this is because [a href=https://www.google.com/finance?chdnp=0&chdd=1&chds=1&chdv=1&chvs=maximized&chdeh=0&chfdeh=0&chdet=1338580800000&chddm=3910&chls=IntervalBasedLine&q=NASDAQ:FB&ntsp=0]there doing so well on the stock market[/a]?

Holy balls, what happened?!

From what I vaguely remember hearing on the radio a couple weeks back, they don't actually have a system of making money. The adverts apparently don't give them much at all.

I don't get it either. I either missed something or they are the most colossal idiots the world has ever seen.

It seems a common problem with web services. The problem is, people come up with some interesting idea, then turn it into a 'business'. Except, as interesting and/or useful as the idea itself is (not saying facebook is either, but let's leave that for another discussion), these services frequently aren't designed very well from a commercial perspective.

Or rather, they're great at what they do, but not so great at bringing in money.

The people that made twitter for instance still haven't figured out how to make any money from it at all.

Facebook meanwhile has hundreds of millions of members, and still can't seem to make a decent revenue stream? It makes you wonder...

At least the 'free to play' games model works quite well. That's built around the idea that only about 1 in 100 players will ever pay you anything, but those that do will earn you more than enough to cover the cost of the other 99 'free' players.

...so why can't they just... use adverts? Preferably ones that work? Like every other commercial site on the internet?!

Is there something I'm missing? Please tell me there's something I'm missing. No company can be this stupid.

Web advertising clearly isn't that reliable. Look at the escapist for instance. I have a subscription, but ask yourself why that exists? And why the ads by all accounts have been getting more & more intrusive?

Remember the scandal surrounding extra credits?
Do you recall they said many of the content providers weren't getting paid?

OK, generalising that isn't a great idea, but it really doesn't seem to bode well for the idea that advertising is a reliable source of income.

Aside from which, facebook should in theory be rolling in it if that were true, since their adverts (on paper at least) are ideal from an advertiser's point of view - advertise directly to people that you know are likely to want your product, and not to anyone else.
Seems perfect.

So why then would facebook be showing signs of such financial issues?

Perhaps a better questions is looking at the companies that clearly can make a lot of money from internet advertising. (Google for instance.)

What makes them good at it where so many others struggle?

It's all well and good saying 'advertising!', but getting that right isn't as easy as it sounds, clearly.