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Comment by sam_in_nyc | Hacker News Reader

Facebook Connect will make or break the company.

If I can share what I do on other sites with my friends on Facebook (presumably people I know and/or care about), that's a value gain for both me and anyone adopting this, because I'm likely to use these other sites more often.

If, on the other hand, Facebook Connect isn't well adopted or it's a miserable experience, the Facebook really is just one locked in social network, and someone will come along and connect my profile across all websites. Someone other than OpenID which is the most annoying login system devised.

How is Facebook not already able to sell marketing information? Nobody wants to know which bands are suddenly becoming more popular (and where)? Or which movies are being looked forward to by which people?

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Monetization will make or break Facebook. If they can pay investors back along with a healthy margin and continue to bring in revenue then they will stay.

Personally I don't think there is enough advertising money available regardless of economic conditions to keep this behemoth afloat. I'd love to know what alternatives those clever FB MBAs are cooking up.

How will FB Connect help pay the bills?

An acquisition could pay back investors as well, unless you think nobody would dare buy a nonprofitable company. But I do think there's some credence to this; they are huge and the economy has sunk quite a bit since their famed $15b valuation.

Still, you don't think they could sell for $2b right now?

My point about Facebook Connect is that it's the one thing that can "lock them in" as the social network of the internet... the place where everyone has their real profile and shares what they really do on other websites. If leaving facebook means screwing my account on 10 other sites on I use, then I'm not going to leave, even if you do slam ads down my throat.

How to monetize. Well, if I was a website using facebook connect, which we have to assume they'll be thousands, I'd surely pay facebook to serve up meaningful ads that use information I've sent them: eg: "4 of your friends recently visited Hackernews"

Another thing which I haven't seen a good implementation of is showing off what people buy. If I bought something online I wouldn't be against sharing it with my friends if, for example, it was a cool product or on sale. Facebook could make money from that. With FBconnect, services might start doing this, and facebook can get a piece of the action for showing news feed items that boost sales.

By the way, are Facebook's numbers even public? How do you know they're losing money?

"By the way, are Facebook's numbers even public? How do you know they're losing money?" -

http://money.cnn.com/2009/01/07/technology/hempel_threepoint...

"[FB] Revenues for 2008 are expected to be about $275 million this year, according to several sources, and it is still not profitable."

it's common knowledge that none of the recent major "web2.0" players have made any or significant profits.

I really think it comes down to "The last sucker" to invest in facebook loses, I think facebook can't sell to anyone but microsoft because of their investment... and perhaps microsoft is waiting for the big crunch; then will get them at a really good price.

Monetization should make or break every company that ever existed. It's silly that there are companies that can't monetize but are considered "successful".

I don't think it's too silly of a concept. You can imagine a company having several departments: some which lose money, and some which make money. The departments that don't "generate revenue" per se can still be beneficial to the company as a whole, perhaps they provide publicity, they're good PR, they good morale, etc...

Those departments, even though they lose money, have value to that company.

With start-ups you can make something profitable, and surely that's preferred because you get your money back sooner, or you can build something that has value to someone else. In the end, you need just need to build something with value.

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