Facebook announced last week that users of its mobile site, m.facebook.com, have increased from 5 million to 15 million during 2008.
While this number constitutes less than 10 percent of total Facebook users, the growth indicates strong interest in mobile social networking.
MySpace is working on a system to allow MySpace users to exchange virtual gift products and make payments within the social network. In particular, the billing and payment system is aimed at enabling MySpace developers to charge for their MySpace apps.
Facebook, which also has its own virtual gifts (not yet open to developers) is also rumored to be working on a payments system.
No-one seems to be talking about it… but what if a payment system created by MySpace - or even Facebook - takes off? Is it possible that by socializing their hundreds of millions of users into using such a payment system… the next step is to enable its use beyond their social networks and in the Internet as a whole. Watch out PayPal.
Based on recent comScore figures, Facebook attracted 161.1 million unique visitors worldwide in September, compared with 117.9 million for MySpace.
Facebook’s figures reflect a jump of 4.7 percent from the 153.9 million people who visited the social network in August. MySpace’s results reflect a decline of 1.6 percent from the 119.8 million visitors it received in August.
The global gap between the two social networks is now 43.2 million visitors. In the U.S. Facebook had 41.4 million unique visitors in September, while MySpace had 73.0 million visitors.
According to TechCrunch, Facebook may become a victim of its own success. With a 118 percent in growth in unique million visitors - from 74 million unique visitors per month a year ago to 161 million uniques per month now (according to comScore) - the company is still not profitable. Which means it may need a substantial cash injection sooner rather than later to continue.
TechCrunch reports that with 750 employees and an estimated $10 million monthly payroll, along with $1 million per month for electricity, $500,000 per month for bandwidth, up to $2 million for each NetApp 3070 storage system it’s buying on a weekly basis, $15 million per year in office and data center rent payments, and $100 million earmarked for 50,000 servers… it all adds up to annual expenses of $200 million or more.
And while Facebook’s 2008 estimated revenue is $265 million, the company is still losing money at current revenues, with no assurance that revenue growth will meet or exceed the growth in costs.
Writes Michael Arrington:
“If revenues don’t grow substantially, the company’s runway of cash gets much shorter. 2008 revenues are likely $100 million less than the company anticipated a year ago. If the economic train really derails, Facebook could be in big trouble.”
If Facebook has spent most of the $500 million it has raised to date… and revenues don’t substantially increase… the company will need further funding. Which, according to Michael Arrington, it should grab as soon as possible.
Erik Qualman has written an interesting article in Search Engine Watch. He has compared the Internet activities of each of the United States’ presidential candidates, Senator Barack Obama and Senator John McCain, focusing on five key areas. He deems Obama as the overall online winner:
1. Website traffic (Obama is the winner): Obama’s site receives 5.5 million unique visitors, while John McCain’s site receives 3.1 million (based on Compete data).
2. Social media (Obama): Obama has over 2 million fans on Facebook, while McCain has just under 600,000.
3. Paid search (McCain): McCain has higher listings than Obama on key search terms.
4. Organic search (tie): while, for every one search for ‘McCain’ there are 2.2 searches for ‘Obama’… there are even more searches for ‘Palin’ (Republican vice-presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin) than Obama. In fact, there are more searches for McCain and Palin combined, compared with Obama and Biden (Democratic vice-presidential candidate, Senator Joe Biden) combined.
5. YouTube (Obama): Obama’s YouTube channel has 100,000 subscribers and his videos have been viewed 17.1 million times. John McCain’s YouTube channel has 24,000 subscribers and has been viewed just 11.1 million times.
How any of this translates into actual votes remains to be seen… but not too long to go now!
Source: Erik Qualman, “Obama is Winning the Internet War”, Search Engine Watch, October 16, 2008
 |
Get Kikabink News Direct To Your Email Inbox |
 |
 |
Subscribe To The Kikabink News RSS Feed |
 |
|
|
|
 |