How do social networking sites create revenue?

[pygar]

Has anyone ever purchased or even click on an ad from facebook?
same thing for myspace.

AOL purchased bebo for $300 million and they basically wrote it off after about a year.

I Think the value of all these social networking sites are hugely inflated.

Facebook has a chance if it starts to sell user data to advertisers, do you guys think the user backlash will be large?

Myspace/bebo can't do this as most of it's userbase is full of 13 year olds.

twitters going to fail fast, unless it get into mobiles and facebook will end up buying it outright.

I don't think online advertising works anymore, Google makes money true, but that's because most users are too stupid to tell the difference between content and text advertisements.

so what do you think? time to pull out your pipe dreams and speculate wildly

[shuaid]

advertisements for third party groups.

[DEADBEATDAD]

Ads on every page.

[I Remember Michelle]

Social Profiling for the Reptilian overlords.

[Agent 008]

Believe it or not, some people click those "Claim your prize by clicking this banner" ads.

And some people respond to Nigerian emails.

Combined with the fact that social networking site users are normally clueless...



Also, it doesn't really matter.

You've got a website that millions of people view. Even if there were no ads on there, it would be worth a lot of money.

[Rocky]

Facebook advertising, doesn't work on a pay per click style. When I was thinking of advertising there, they charge an amount for ads, Not sure, but they charge a fee for say.. 1000 users getting one ad.

[plutomic]

millions of people+ ads= revenue.

[deus]

Not just advertising, targeted advertising.

They use your profile data to decide which adverts to show you.

[Psynthetic]

Not just advertising, targeted advertising.

Lol, one time I set my status as "DEATH TO ISRAEL!", and to this day I get ads about jewish singles websites and other misc. jew shit.

[Jo Nathen]

Banners of gayness when I log into myspace. Thank god for Ad-Block.

[Th0r]

Ads or alternately groups like Facebook selling users details.

[IdentityCrisis]

Facebook has wonderful user generated ads, which they actually sell the data, so companies know what features people want from products. Also it is to be noted that the CIA has a hand in Facebook, but that's a conversation for the Conspiracy section (but it is true, and it some instances it's good. Such as it makes drafts irrelevant, because they can see who supports what, but that can be bad if we ever go into a Military State).

Oh and Google is way better. They know what your interests are (Google search), they know where you live and where you travel (Maps), they know your conversations (Gmail/GoogleTalk), sometimes people even use their search to find a good buy on a certain product, which is very useful information.