Facebook, the world’s largest social network, seems to be displeased with its ad revenue. This may be the reason behind their thought of showing advertisements to users on mobile devices in March, before its $5billion (£3.2billion) initial public offering. This was noted in accordance to a newspaper report.
Facebook has already started discussing proposals with advertising agencies, so that they will be able to display ‘featured stories’ in users news feeds. The Financial Times said that it was basically an effort to tap a new source of revenue.
With almost half of the total network of Facebook already using the mobile platform to use Facebook, the possibility to earn millions is huge.
From the user’s point of view, this will not please them. This will only add to the clutter on mobile phone screens, making its mobile user interface feel terrible.
There are others even who have shared their thoughts on this matter. Christian Lindholm, a former Nokia designer, told the FT: ‘No one has cracked mobile advertising. The fundamental problem is the lack of screen real estate.’
Facebook’s earlier attempt to move into mobile advertising, saw the social networking giant rolling location-based ‘check-in’ deals in November 2010. The activation process here required users to register their location through the smartphone app once.
It can be noted that if the mobile marketing is to be considered as effective, then there would be a necessity to use even more personal information to provide targeted ads, which is a tricky road to navigate.
Another comment from the same to the FT came from Alexandre Mars, chief executive of Publicis Groupe’s mobile agency Phonevalley. He said, ‘They know a lot of things about you – how and when they can start using them and whether you will be okay or be annoyed – that will be their challenge.’
Talking about the IPO of Facebook, Zuckerberg’s cofounding in 2004 may be valued anywhere between $80bn and $100bn, which started in a Harvard University dorm room, say Wall Street sources. This would even turn Zuckerberg into the world’s 23rd richest person. If that is to happen, his worth would be about $24bn, trailing Microsoft’s Bill Gates but ahead of Google’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
That is not all. The Facebook IPO will even give birth to a new generation of Silicon Valley millionaires. Facebook employees own 30 percent of the company shares and with thousands of employees working for Facebook – from engineers to software designers – we are bound to see instant millionaires come in the wake of the IPO.
So, when he is minting money farms, then why would he want to come up with the idea of monetizing Facebook mobile ads?
It is a debatable topic, which has just one answer to it, that is money makes money and more money.