If you would have asked me a month ago, I would have without hesitation told you, “parents will be what brings Facebook crumbling to its knees”.
Like many others, I have been mulling over ideas for a while as to how Facebook is ever going to make enough money to stay in business and started thinking “surely now that parental units are signing on to the service to engage their peers while monitoring progeny” that Facebook had definitely found its way to ultimate fail. Because, when has it ever been cool, or acceptable, for any adolescent to admit, not only enjoying, but actively engaging in the same activities as their parents…and publicly!? As the adult-like folks were joining more rapidly, surely the kids would slowly leave and find a new stomping ground. Even if your own parents weren’t playing web 2.0 with you, your peers would already be moving on so there would be no need to stay.
A mass exit of these young folks, who by the way don’t have income, creates a huge problem because Facebook has a better chance getting into a parent’s wallet by way of the child’s wants than the direct willingness of any grown-up to dole out funds for some seemingly useless service. Think about games like Rune Scape and WoW. These games are making loads of cash because kids everywhere are dipping into their parents’ cash stashes.
Kids abandoning their accounts doesn’t mean Facebook is completely out of the monetizing game. It could change its plan to better target an older audience and sell dating services, or adult content. Something older folks might actually pay for online. But this is a huge reach and would probably upset a lot of investors who didn’t plan on buying into a glorified version of adult friend finder or “where are my exes now?” type products. (Although, why should they be upset if they’re getting some kind of reasonable ROI?)
Seriously, though, it seemed as though Facebook was done for. No way they could find real revenues now. Except, then a tiny little game like FarmVille comes along and every Farcebook clown in town is signing up, sending neighborly invites, harvesting crops, and mom and daughter are exchanging ducks for cows. A common ground, which according to The Business Insider, FarmVille creator Zynga is pulling daily revenues over $500,000 for these types of online social games where real human beings spend precious moola buying virtual goods. (How now brown cow?) Zynga then turns around and spends a supposed $50MM annually buying advertising spots on Facebook.
It isn’t adding up for me just yet, but maybe I’m missing something. Perhaps Facebook has found it’s money maker. Perhaps it will be the social network that brings families closer together, or what have you. Or maybe it really is still just a passing fad.
There are three things to take away from this, if nothing else:
- While FarmVille seems like a ridiculously silly game, it’s necessary to remember that it’s really no different than any of the Sim (city, earth, ant, etc.) games so many of us enjoyed in the 90s. Which is to say, “you were once silly too.”
- While Facebook seems like a ridiculously silly platform, it’s important to accept that it has awesome potential. Not just for its creators, but for third parties, to capitalize upon. We cannot just brush it to the side, and to do so would be small-minded and stupid of us.
- There were a lot of “F” words in this post, but there are two more we need not exclude because when combined they concisely describe the overall sentiment — fucking fascinating.
###
Facebook Fail — Parents? was first posted to justinll.com on September 29, 2009.