Want to contact a stranger on Facebook? Pay $1
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Advertisers will bid against each other for that coveted message each day, and Facebook will figure out how to maximize bids. For example, even celebrities will be targeted, so companies may end up paying $10,000 per message for them, while a typical person may be $1-$5, or something like that.
The idea of opt-ins/opt-outs from newsletter/product emails/updates would diminish if this goes through and everyone starts using facebook again.
I'm still on the fence about whether this is good or bad. Targeted advertisements are a great method of product discovery (at least for me, ie. Amazon). But I'm not sure I'm ready to relinquish my inbox -- email, facebook, or otherwise.
Seems fairer, no?
If there were a hard cost per recipient, the ROI of email campaigns would change significantly. This change would be positive for users. The question is whether or not senders would bear the burden, or if they would flow to "less legitimate" means of reaching recipients on Facebook. It may be that senders would more willingly accept lower actual reach rather than pay the additional cost.
For some reason Diaspora is not catching up. I thought that many portal owners, who already provide email accounts, would also provide "social" stuff - Diaspora. User can create account on any Diaspora server and connect with any one on any other Diaspora server.
Maybe this is because Diaspora version is something like 0.0.2. Maybe this is because of technology behind it - Rails, instead of e.g. PHP - ugly, but well known and liked by huge majority of hosting/server admins.
Hopefuly one day Diaspora or something based on similar concept would get popular, like Jabber and, all time winner, e-mail.
Marketers dream for this type of targeting. Now, instead of an ad that people ignore, you could get a message delivered directly to these people. I, for one, would gladly pay $1 per targeted delivery of message.
If the system works as elegantly as Google Adwords, this will be big. It could go either way though. 1) users revolt against this and it flops, or 2) users actually like the messages from high bidders because it targets them especially well.
Will be exciting to see which way it turns out
If Facebook wanted to allow marketers to message users directly why wouldn't they build a system for it? I can't see how this is an attempt to make revenue... it would be an awful decision. How would a marketer even know who to target?
I (a Facebook user) have likes, I have interactions with things (pages, people, websites) and I have personal information (age, gender). An advertiser can target these things (eg: 21 year old male) but they cannot say "Give me the profile URLs of every that likes Minecraft" can they?
For example I currently have this advert displaying on Facebook: http://i.imgur.com/3p9oy.png, Thinkgeek don't know who I am, only Facebook does. Thinkgeek provide the targeting information, Facebook execute it.
If this is the case, how would a company like Thinkgeek ever know to message me about Minecraft things? unless Facebook provided them with my profile, which they do not. The only way to do it would be if they were scraping profiles, which Facebook do not allow and if Facebook were to allow it they would build out such a system (targeted messages).
Country,City,Age,Sex,Relationship Status,Language,Education,Workplace,Platform and finally interest based.
Interest based can be as specific as "Liking" a minecraft page or as broad as gaming. They can target you for using a specific app on facebook or playing a specific game.
They can target every single thing about you.
Edit: It's late.
I've re-read your comment.
It would probably not be a direct message from Thinkgeek , but more like a marketing email with whatever content they provided to facebook.
It would feel weird to receive a direct message from a company and might look sketchy.
EDIT: to the downvoter -- explain how the $1 proposal doesn't have a profit motive.
Facebook could also charge $1 and give 50c to the user for receiving the message rather than keeping the whole dollar.
Sure FB could take a cut of each message fee but that wasn't the OP proposal
> Today we’re starting a small experiment to test the usefulness of economic signals to determine relevance. This test will give a small number of people the option to pay to have a message routed to the Inbox rather than the Other folder of a recipient that they are not connected with.
> This message routing feature is only for personal messages between individuals in the U.S. In this test, the number of messages a person can have routed from their Other folder to their Inbox will be limited to a maximum of one per week.
More details: There is a new tool tip in my FB account now stating "Your messages get filtered automatically so you mostly see stuff from friends and people you may know in your Inbox. To review your filtering options, click Other > Edit Preferences. Note: These filters replace the old "Who can send you Facebook message"
Efficiently deliver messages? What a load of BS. How more efficient can it be than free, instantaneous and in the convenience of the recipient's pocket?
Instead, they should say, they are holding back on all other communication and putting a premium on these paid messaged that only go normally, as they should.
It's the "net neutrality" thing, only this time it's "message neutrality" that we need.
Also Facebook takes your money, the person on the receiving side gets NOTHING whereas Directly.me gives 80% to the person on the receiving end.
LinkedIn probably has the advantage here because it was started explicitly as a resume/business/hustling platform, whereas facebook started as a way for students to keep in touch with friends.
They have a service which they are providing to you for free. They need to monetize this service and they're trying out different things.
In this case, it's not so much about monetization as it is about cutting spam, and erecting a monetary barrier which is huge in cutting down spam.
It's sleazy because they have weaned people off open and free protocols into their walled garden and now they are going in for the kill. It's like how Nestle gave baby formula to African mothers so that they would stop lactating, then they cut off the supply and charged the mothers ridiculous prices so they could continue nourishing their babies.