How Eduardo Saverin sold Facebook ads in 2004 (2012)
digiday.com
digiday.com
Using the word addiction must have been a sound sales pitch in the early days. An expression that has quickly been replaced by technical terms like ‘engagement’ and ‘retention’.
> Using the word addiction must have been a sound sales pitch in the early days. An expression that has quickly been replaced by technical terms like ‘engagement’ and ‘retention’.
> Using the word addiction must have been a sound sales pitch in the early days.
Yes, it used to be a positive thing, eg, "So good/fun you'll get addicted". I haven't thought about addictinggames.com for maybe a decade but it seems like they're still around.
Did a double take until I saw the date. This aged spectacularly poorly…
And yeah, Facebook does roll off the tongue better than Thefacebook.com.
Kind of reminds me of how Google started selling ads, just buy a keyword, that's it. And the CPM was determined by bidding (though I'm not sure how you make that fair)
So my comment was dead wrong. I'm sorry for assuming that facebook ever regarded its users as anything other than "dumb fucks" that they could track as they please.
What I am offended by however is how poor the targeted ads are on Facebook. I don’t think I’ve ever bought anything based on one or even been tempted to.
Not
And with bold letters:
"Be warned: We are trying to sell target ads based on your sensitive personal information such as, but not limited to:
Sex Sexual Orientation Relationship status Income Education level "
I know Facebook goes well beyond that into some pretty creepy territory, but that's not what I'm talking about.
The thing that is so f*ing frustrating about both FB and Google is they could provide REALLY good targeted ads by only looking at stuff I provide (e.g. my submitted profile info, my search keywords). Instead they have to track everything I do to squeeze an extra X% out of their conversion numbers.
What if you don't have to see ads?
Your reasoning depends on a presupposition that has been sold to you by Facebook and the tech industry that survives on ad spend.
If you read the terms on the Facebook website it says, paraphrasing, "Facebook shall always remain free". It is not free of course, for its customers.
The rationale Facebook offers for why it muct be free is something like "it must be free so Facebook can be available to people in poorer countries as a means of communication". Eeven if that were a reason, it is not a rationale why it must be free for Americans.
The truth is actually that you are not Facebook's customer, unless you are buying ads or promotions. They can only charge customers. In order to lure in subjects (particpants) for the customers to advertise to, Facebook creates a website and gives participants their own pages where they can share photos, etc. and communicate with each other.
Even particpants in clinical trials or other research studies get paid. Facebook should be paying you for being part of their experiment.
They are paying you - by giving you free access to multiple products and services which all cost money to develop, maintain, and host.
If we market those "products and services" to which you refer -- I suspect they are not the ad services sold by Facebook -- on their own, what are they worth?
More cognitive dissonance.
People do not pay to particpate in research studies, even though they may get some "free stuff" in the course of participating in the research.
The Facebook "service" is market research and advertising services. Whatever "free stuff" participants may receive in the course of participating is not "products and services" the research sponsor (advertisers), Facebook or anyone else can sell. No one would pay.
Facebook users agree to be studied and marketed to by advertisers. As the participants, are providing Facebook with value. They are allowing Facebook to conduct market research and collect the data.
If we subtract the Facebook customers - advertisers - then there is no paying customer. Development, maintenance and hosting are expenses necessary to provide the service of conducting the research and services for the paying customer. Users are not Facebook's customers.
It matters little if any user says that Facebook has "value" when that same user would also refuse to pay to be a participant in Facebook's research on behalf of advertisers (research sponsors). Whatever "free stuff" users are getting by participating is not worth enough that they would pay for it.
Communicating and sharing through websites is valuable. We pay for internet access so we can do that, among other things. Facebook is just an implementation detail.
As for ads, it was funnier when they ignored much of that available information. Seems hard to believe now but there was a long time when Facebook ads was a sidebar consisting of poorly targeted dating website ads.