In 2006, I was one of the doubting Thomas’s who made an observation that Facebook should sell to Yahoo. At that time, it hadn’t gotten any traction or launched its platform or gotten traction across the web. Of course, six years later, I have been proven wrong and thus giving others an opportunity to gloat. Of course, as I said on twitter, in hindsight we are either geniuses or idiots. On that one, I was clearly wrong.
I course corrected, however, when Facebook launched Facebook Connect. The big picture fell in place at that moment. And here is what I thought then:
In addition to offering a simple authentication method, FC allows granular social interactions to be embedded in non-Facebook services. If Facebook can work with its partners to build interesting use-case scenarios that go beyond simple sign-on, it is quite feasible that Facebook can out-execute Google, MySpace and everyone else with its ID ambitions.
Why? Because this is their one chance of building a monetization engine. The company makes no bones about trying to build a platform that allows it to offer branded advertising in a manner akin to Google’s Adsense. A simpler person (like yours truly) would call this a platform that serves ads for all occasions, reasons and seasons.”
when asked how the company will make money, Mark apparently said the company isn’t currently focused on monetization and will be looking to extend their platform’s reach. He doesn’t have to – if Facebook Connect works, the money will follow.