Step 1 : get your button

First of all, visit this page and customise the url by adding in the individual profile url, as shown below :

Step 2 : Customise

As with the Lkebox, Facebook gives you a number of options to customise your subscribe button, depending on how much information you want to show. Here you can choose whether to show the face of the user (which will take up more space), font, colour scheme and the width of the box :

Step 3 – Embed

When you’ve finished your button, click on ‘Get Code’ and choose whether you want the code in html5, as an iframe or XFBML. At this point, it’s over to your developer to embed the code in your site. Think carefully about where you place the subscribe button and customise this as much as possible. Rather than just featuring the same profile throughout all the pages on your site, or just the website, create different buttons for different people where relevant. Although this is focused on boosting subscribers for individuals, if you’re managing these profiles carefully with a clear strategy in place, you can hope to increase engagement with your company overall.

The Financial Times are reporting that several people familiar with Facebook’s planning say that it has already discussed proposals with advertising agencies, some of which involve displaying “featured stories” in the news feed, similar to how Twitter advertise on their main site.

Facebook said that putting ‘sponsored stories’ adverts – where brands pay to highlight people’s endorsements or interactions with them in their friends’ list of online activity – on mobiles was one possible route it could take.

In its IPO filing last week, Facebook stated to potential investors that the lack of ‘meaningful revenue’ from mobile devices, used by half of its 800 million users, could negatively affect their revenue intake as more and more users turn to smartphones instead of PCs to connect with friends.

The challenge for Facebook is finding the balance between satisfying their future shareholders with their rapid revenue growth and their users. The latter, judging by reactions to previous changes Facebook has made to their site in recent times, may be resistant to the idea of being bombarded by advertising on both desktop and mobile platforms.

Considering their 800 million users, it’s practically impossible to make changes without upsetting a portion, but the company must figure out the best way to incorporate adverts without breaking up the experience. The small screen and streamlined presentation presents numerous headaches for Facebook who, if they create the perfect formula, could be set to uncover a revenue goldmine.

Facebook are exploring other areas for increasing revenue, for one, it is also holding an event for marketers in New York on February 29th where they are expected to unveil Timeline brand pages for companies to avail of. Also The Financial Times say that the company may go further towards incentivising brands to post ads that link back to Facebook, rather than external sites.

So what is this large search box that dominates the top of Zuckerberg’s profile? Is it actually some sort of competitor to Google search? Is it just something that they have hacked together and are testing? It could just be an internal view of Facebook that he uses with the logo pushed to one side but my own hunch is that With Google pushing so hard in to the social search space Facebook could be preparing it’s own overhaul of their search functionality. It really would be about time.

As you can see below a standard Facebook profile looks nothing like the one that Zuckerberg has on his screen. The search box is small and only sits at the center of the profile and isn’t a main focus probably because of the poor quality results it currently returns. Lets hope this is a new version of Facebook search because we have all been waiting for it for long enough at this stage.

Analysis: A sobering look at Facebook
Although there has been lots of hype about investors and staff becoming millionaires and even billionaires from the public offering the focus will now move to average investors to see if they start buying the stock. This excellent piece from Reuters has a look at some of the numbers behind the IPO and ask if it is all actually worth it.

Sarah Lacy over at Pando Daily has been following the Facebook story since the early days when she phoned the offices and Mark Zuckerberg himself picked up the phone. This post gives a great insight in to how Zuckerberg has stayed CEO and runs the company on his terms.The

The Wall Street Journal says that the Advertisers’ free ride on Facebook may be over. The article argues that it is hard to get any coverage on Facebook simple by having people like your content and the platform is moving towards a pay to play offering where the only way for brands and businesses to get seen is by paying for ads.

Plenty of people have become millionaires and there will even be a group of billionaires when the IPO goes ahead but this article broke the story of a young man who painted the offices back in 2006 and accepted stock instead of cash and is now worth over $200 million.

There are people arguing both sides of the argument on Facebook being worth $100 billion but this post says Facebook Clearly Belongs in the 10X Revenue Club and has some good technical analysis and explanations on why that is the case.

If Facebook does have one issue that has always hung over it since it’s launch then it is privacy and this post explains why things could be about to heat up even more for the social platform…. Post-IPO, Facebook will have to make privacy investigations public

Facebook’s $5 Billion IPO: The Next Google? Or The Next Groupon? There have been a whole host of tech IPOs in the last year and not all of them have done as well as expected. This in depth look at the market from Wired weighs up the options for Facebook and where the stock price could be headed.

Once again MD Seigler is straight to the point and has some simple numbers that point out the who the battle between Google and Facebook could be heating up in terms of revenue.  Facebook might only have a tenth of Google’s revenues now but as he says they are coming!

Evaluating a big network, which isn’t the same as a big product. Some really good thoughts here about the size of the network and what could possibly happen if advertising just fell away and what the network would then be worth.

Where is Facebook’s Audacious S1? The Author here argues that Facebook had the chance to do something really different and shake Wall Street up but in the end their IPO was as predictable as all the other big companies coming to market.

Facebook users can reach an average of more than 150,000 Facebook users through their Facebook friends; the median user can reach about 31,000 others. At two degrees of separation (friends-of-friends), Facebook users in our sample can on average reach 156,569 other Facebook users. However, the relatively small number of users with very large friends lists, who also tended to have lists that are less interconnected, overstates the reach of the typical Facebook user. In our sample, the maximum reach was 7,821,772 other Facebook users. The median user (the middle user from our sample) can reach 31,170 people through their friends-of-friends.

Although the number won’t be in the millions for most people it is a start reminder of the scale of Facebook and the consequences of ticking certain boxes on the site that might seem fairly minor at the time. The survey used Facebook logs of hundreds of users and had some other interesting findings including…

40% of Facebook users in our sample made a friend request, but 63% received at least one request

Users in our sample pressed the like button next to friends’ content an average of 14 times, but had their content “liked” an average of 20 times

Users sent 9 personal messages, but received 12

12% of users tagged a friend in a photo, but 35% were themselves tagged in a photo

PIP Facebook Users 2.3.12

Well, the best indicator of Facebook’s brand page improvements are usually derived from profile pages. When Facebook overhauled profile pages in 2010, brand pages were soon to follow, in the very same style. So back to the present, where Facebook have rolled out Timeline to its users, and it is fully expected that they will replicate the Timeline’s visual aesthetic to the full – and with good reason.

Timeline is visually rich and could be exploited by brands, with lots of room for big visuals and app integration. So we thought we would try and see how a few of Facebook’s biggest brands could take advantage of the possible new look for brand pages.

*NOTE: These are only rough mock-ups of how the new brand pages might look.

McDonalds

First we have the global McDonalds page – while still being very strong, lacks a major focal point. Now, for the possible revamp. The first notable change is the cover photo. This would be the biggest visual area brands could utilise. The entire header of the page is ready to be filled with a banner ad displaying the latest offer, product or just showing the brand’s visual identity.

This is a massive change from what Facebook are currently allowing – five microscopic sized icons at the top of the page, that can’t really give any visual impact. Also, it would be a much easier way of integrating and sticking videos/ads onto Timeline permanently.

Nike

Next we have one of the biggest brands on Facebook, Nike. Known for their slick advertising campaigns, their Timeline could provide a plethora of visual ideas for the brand. One thing Facebook could also integrate is its frictionless sharing applications. So, for example, Nike could pin their latest Likes and Pins on Pinterest, or share what movies they Like.

Mercedes Benz

Finally, we have Mercedes Benz. Again, their current page isn’t bad at all, providing lots of information on dealers, products etc, as well as the usual photos and videos. With a Timeline page, their Facebook presence could be dramatically transformed. In fact, the Timeline cover photo is perfectly suited to things such as cars. Car companies could display their latest model in a massive banner ad at the top of their page. Apps could be integrated with the page, bringing much higher engagement with current fans.So there you have it, just a wild guess as to what Facebook’s rumoured new brand pages might look like. Do you think they will in fact use the Timeline style? Also, will they integrate apps on the page like our own profiles? Only time will tell, but it seems certain that brand pages will receive a long overdue revamp very soon.

With that in mind, I’ve put together an update to the top tips for making the most of your Facebook ads to (hopefully) increase your click through rate, reduce your cost per click and improve the overall engagement of your ads.

Target Ads Based On Actions

This isn’t currently an option within Facebook’s own self-serve advertising platform, but the company Social Ads Tool has developed the functionality to be able to target users based on particular actions they take. This is based on the new Open Graph features, that allow app developers to create their own actions within an app such as ‘listened to’ ‘ate’ ‘visited’ etc..

Unfortunately this isn’t a free tool, but it’s recommended for those with larger marketing budgets – to test out new Facebook functionality as it emerges and ensure new ways of getting in front of your target audience – before everyone bundles in and starts doing the same

Time Your Sponsored Stories

The click through rate of sponsored stories will typically be much higher than standard Facebook ads – mainly because they don’t look like ads but instead fit beter with the organic nature of discovering content on Facebook. With sponsored stories you have two options: Page Like Story (your ad is shown when a friend Likes your page) and Page Post Like Story (your ad is shown when a friend likes a particular post on your Page).

From a user’s perspective, the second one is likely to appear more interesting, as it isn’t just about liking ‘x’ brand, but they get an insight into the type of content on your Page. Time these sponsored stories well. You’ll know when you’ve got a particularly good update, such as an offer, competition, or exclusive piece of content. Time your sponsored stories around the time of this post, to make the engagement spread further.

Lead To A Dedicated Tab

When you’re a new fan seeing a Facebook Page for the first time, it can be hard to ascertain how useful the Page might be and whether it’s even an official Page by just looking at the wall. You’ll probably find a much better connection rate on your ad (the amount of people who Like your Page after clicking on an ad) if you take them through to a dedicated landing tab that tells them exactly what they need to know and why they should join their Page. And of course, if you Likegate this, you’ll likely see a higher connection rate too. Note this option is also available as ‘Page Post Advert’ in standard Facebook ads.

Promote Shared Links

You’ll find that Facebook advertising works best when you reflect the ways that people use Facebook overall. So it’s not all about just promoting your brand, but sharing content as well. Sharing links on your Facebook Page is a good way to engage existing fans, but you should also choose to promote these as specific post as well. These will show up slightly differently in the ad sidebar on users’ profiles, which will further draw attention to your ad. You can promote this either by selecting the shared link post from within the Facebook ad option:

…or by entering the post id of that specific post:

The post ID can be found by clicking into a particular post, and copying the numbers at the end of the url:

…which you then enter into the required field:

Promote Retrospectively

Whereas Page post stories previously only let you promote your most recent content, with the new option to manually enter a post ID, you can now promote retrospectively. This means that your best content can keep on working for you. Target your ads based on your post’s popularity.

So if one of your posts is getting a lot of comments/likes, or you even find for example that an offer-driven post is converting into sales, promote this post retrospectively to keep generating positive results. You’ll need careful tracking to ensure this is done in the best way, particularly looking for activity on your own website originating from Facebook ads.

Think about timing

This applies particularly if you’re running a Facebook ad campaign that’s promoting individual posts. When you’re leading through to a post, the likelihood is that once someone’s clicked on your ad, they’re going to Like your Page/post or leave a comment. If you’re running these ads at the weekend, try and make sure that you have someone around to actually follow up on this action.

You might risk putting off a new fan if, for example, they ask a question as a followup, but it doesn’t get answered. Try allocating your ad budget based on times that you know work. This might be taken from your Google Adwords campaign, where you can day-part your reports to find which times of the day your users are most likely to engage with you.

Effectively an extension to what the site already does, the app scours your friends on the site and see what jobs are on offer. If one of your friends, or someone your friend knows, is linked with a company that has a vacancy, such results will appear at the bottom of your feed showing you what connections you have at a company.

Once you’re logged in, you can read all the usual information associated with each vacancy such as anoynmous reviews and ratings, salary reports and interview questions and reviews. It allows you to get a feel for the company you’re interested in and develop a much better idea about whether its the best fit for you or not.

Glassdoor say that 60% of all jobs are obtained through an inside connection and it’s through this principal that Glassdoor have created their app. It’s incredibly similar to LinkedIn in this regard, but since Facebook is more about social connections, there’s a much higher chance of you having a connection in an industry you’re interested in.

While it’s at best an extension of their site, it’s a good example of a site using Facebook apps to enhance their product instead of tacking it on to gain more traffic. Not everyone is on LinkedIn and it’s perhaps easier to network with someone if you have a social connection as opposed to a professional one.

The site has information on more than 150,000 companies from across the world and currently has more than six million job listings on its site. There are over three million reviews and salaries listed on the site to help your search.

I want to stay focused on Facebook’s mobile strategy with the company themselves admitting in their filing that it was the area with the biggest potential, but also a huge threat to their business going forward.More and more people (450 million) are using Facebook on their mobiles but with no revenue streams and with Facebook unable to own the biggest platforms (they belong to Andoid and iOS) the future is slightly uncertain. As they say themselves:

“We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products. Accordingly, if users continue to increasingly access Facebook mobile products as a substitute for access through personal computers…our revenue and financial results may be negatively affected”.

In truth, Facebook have been in this tight corner for the last couple of years and they have been making some great strides (including their own rumored phone and mobile operating system), but as the story of the IPO shows there are still a lot of unanswered questions that investors will need to know about the future…

Facebook Only Owns The Desktop

Since it started, Facebook has been a huge success first and foremost on desktops. They have over 400 million mobile users and that side of the business has been booming for the last twelve months. But in terms of revenue, nearly 100% comes from people clicking on ads or playing games while using the platform on desktops.

Consumer browsing habits are fast moving from desktops to mobiles though and Facebook finds itself in the tricky position of trying to navigate this change and find a solution that works across all the mobile platforms. They are clearly in the phase of acquiring as many mobile users as possible and are doing this with as much success as they did the desktop. However, making money from those users is going to be tricky because location based services, targeted mobile advertising and other mobile revenue streams have just not really taken off.

Facebook Eating Its Own Revenues

While it might seem like a great thing that Facebook users are moving in increasingly large numbers from the desktop to mobile devices (including tablets), that will start hurting their own revenue as time goes on. To put it simply, there are ads on the desktop that a lot of people click on while no such ads exist yet on mobiles.

There is no doubt that Facebook will start to monetize mobile later this year and open up new revenue streams, but for now Facebook is actually cannibalizing their own revenues by improving their mobile offerings. It will be interesting to see if and when Facebook turn on their mobile ad platforms and what they look like.

Facebook Deal with Apple Is Inevitable

The IPO filing mentions the biggest threat as being the fact that Facebook is reliant on two of the biggest platforms in iOS and Android. As they say themselves:

“We are dependent on the interoperability of Facebook with popular mobile operating systems that we do not control, such as Android and iOS, and any changes in such systems that degrade our products’ functionality or give preferential treatment to competitive products could adversely affect Facebook usage on mobile devices.”

As there is very little chance of Google and Facebook ever working together in a meaningful way then the only option is really Apple. They are, of course, already in bed with Twitter baked in to their iOS5 operating system, but there is no reason why Facebook shouldn’t be more deeply integrated into iOS.

It would make both Apple and Facebook more powerful and they have been very close to a deal of this nature in the past only for it to break down at the last minute. It won’t be easy for either side but the companies will eventually strike a deal and declare Android as the common enemy.

The Five Year Plan

Despite all the problems and perceived threats, Facebook have been making great strides in the last year in terms of getting their mobile strategy together. Their apps have improved drastically, they have beautiful tablet versions of their sites and they have accumulated a huge amount of mobile users.

The desktop is still kind, but Facebook will need a strong five year plan that sees at least 30 or 40% of their revenues coming from mobile. It’s a very serious challenge and if I was investing, it would be my biggest fear but based on Facebook’s track record and their huge new pot of money, it is a challenge that I’m pretty sure they can pass with flying colors.

The vast majority of users are still only getting used to their Facebook Timeline, and the fact is that it will be mandatory for everybody within the next week or so. The first thing that people notice is the cover photo and the new flashy design, but there are tons of little tricks and tips that you can use to enhance your Facebook experience. Given that Timeline is essentially a picture of everything you do in your life, you will probably want to make yourself look as well as you possible can and avail of some of these cool new features that are available…

Subscribers

This was a subtle change that Facebook introduced a couple of months ago. You don’t have this switched on by default, but by turning it on you can bypass the problems you have with too many people sending you friend requests. You now only have to have your real friends and you can allow other people to simply subscribe to your updates. Your subscribers don’t need to see everything you update either as the options allow you to customize every single thing they see. To activate subscribers, simply go in to the subscriber tab on Timeline and then click on “settings”.

Tagging Photos To Map

You can upload photos from the various mobile versions of Facebook, but you can also retrospectively add photos to your map on Timeline. It’s a great way of tracking where you have been  around the world and when. Improving your map will become addictive with the more photos and locations you add over time the better it gets.

Life Events

Life events are new on Timeline and they allow you to paint a picture of the major things that have been happening in your life like getting a job, relationships, moving house or starting a hobby. Remember that these will all be dated and added to your Timeline at the relevant time so it’s a great way of keeping track of all the big moments in your life and looking back at a future date. You can also add events retrospectively.

Pimp Your Photos

The Timeline photo is obviously something that you can play around with a lot to create a unique look for your page, but you might not be a graphic designer or have the eye for creating something truly stunning. Luckily Schweppes have launched an app that does all the hard work for you and allows you to create stunning Timeline cover photos. The video explains how it works and you can check out the app itself here.

Hide Stuff From Your Timeline

As soon as you start using Timeline you are going to realize that there is stuff that you never want to appear so publicly for the world to see. The nature of the layout means that people can scan back over everything you have done for a number of years and find the geeky or drunk photos you posted way back in the day. Luckily you can click on the little pencil beside any individual item you spot and choose to hide it forever from your public Timeline.

Hide The Sidebar

Facebook is currently doing everything it possibly can to keep your attention within the site. The ticker (the little mini real time news feed in the top right hand corner) and chat appear on every single page and they keep you on the site. They can also be very annoying and highly distracting as you probably don’t want to know what song somebody is listening to or what article they’ve just read. Luckily one simple little click of a button on the bottom right of the screen will remove the ticker and chat and give you a purer Facebook experience.

Block People From Seeing Your Timeline

If you really don’t want somebody to see your Timeline at all you can go through a series of steps to restrict who sees what. Once you have clicked on the privacy settings you can then enter the names of the people that you want to block. Once you have done that you can head over to your Timeline and click on “view profile as” which will show you what your profile will look like when viewed by a particular person.

Change Your Cover Photo On The Go

With the main cover photo acting as the main feature on your profile it can be a nice tip to change this while on the go. By simply firing up any of the Facebook apps and heading over to your profile, you can then click on the photo icon and snap a photo that will instantly appear on your Timeline. A great way of letting people know what is happening with your life while on the go.

Play Beautiful Full Size Videos

If you have shared (or somebody else has shared to your Timeline) a video then you can click the little star beside it that will allow you to “resize” the video. This simple action means that the video will then appear full size on your Timeline forever going forward (unless you change it back of course). It’s a simple way of showing off great content and making your Timeline look more unique. This also works for photos.

Control What Appears On Timeline Of Others

The most important place to go on your Timeline is “Activity log” which allows you to control what is happening on your Timeline and what gets shared. You can also chose to remove stuff that you have been tagged in, remove the post from Timeline completely or even mark it as spam. This is the best place to go if you are worried what other people are posting on their Timeline about you.

Called ‘Spotify your status‘, it basically allows those who have the app installed onto their profile to select music that reflects their status update. Through identifying key words that you type, a list of songs are selected for you to accompany your status update, the idea that a song will convey a message more than a simple status update.

Frankly, I’m not a user of Spotify and the idea of my Facebook friends seeing my (questionable) taste in music has meant that I’ve avoided it so far. But it does tap into the idea of people linking youtube clips with status updates – usually when they’re announcing something important – so I could easily name a few of my friends who would use this app, especially if its integration is as seamless as it appears. Others will more than likely avoid it if it ever comes to fruition, but if you’re interested and want to see how it could work, have a look at the video below. (Note: there’s no sound in the video except for when songs are being played)

What’s nice is that at the end of the video you have the option to replace the images automatically chosen, with your own ones from your Timeline, making the video more personable as you show the images you really want to share.

Collaboration from Facebook

This app also signals a new way of doing things at Facebook, with increased partnerships to promote their products. Just yesterday we reported on a new Facebook app for the U.S. election, which was created by Facebook and the ad agency R/G. It also follows partnerships with Moo to create business cards out of your Timeline. This is a different kind of Facebook than what we’ve seen before. While they have always welcomed other companies into the platform – perhaps most significantly Zynga – we’ve never seen such a slew of apps created in partnership with Facebook and other companies.

While this is largely a positive move for Facebook, it also comes at a risk. Facebook has always been known for a seamless, reliable experience. As they branch out with other companies, this is something that they risk. While Timeline Movie Maker is a nice app, it doesn’t really offer a very intuitive experience on Facebook.

For example, when sharing your movie to your newsfeed, the video isn’t playable directly – people have to follow a link to get the site. This isn’t the kind of thing you’d expect from Facebook themselves, so they will need to work hard to avoid the pitfalls of the Myspace ugly situation.

KLM have shown countless times just how much they understand social media with the likes of this airplane campaign, this smart Twitter campaign, and also some excellent customer service. Watching this video would make me feel happy to be a KLM fan, and want to engage with the page even more so you could say that is probably job done.

That’s a very significant percentage, with the second most popular response being “I don’t know why I’m still on Facebook” with 32.36%. But will this fear and backlash blow over, or will the changes be largely accepted when they come, like most of the past changes Facebook has made?

Will People Leave Facebook?

Timeline could become a headache for Facebook if the latest media reports are anything to go by, and in addition to that there’s heightened concern around issues of privacy online and the compulsory nature of such changes at the moment, which has gathered momentum since Google announced the compulsory changes to its privacy policy and terms of service.

In the case of both Facebook and Google, the most obvious thing to do if you don’t like the changes they make is to stop using the services. However, this is likely to be too hard for many people who are so accustomed to the services and would feel out of the loop if they were to leave. So either people vote with their online feet or accept the changes, but are the Facebook changes really all that groundbreaking?

They are presenting information that you, the user, have made public to whoever you have selected as your audience, but just making it searchable by date, so if you’ve always had your profile on private and haven’t put anything questionable on it, then it doesn’t sound like the Timeline change will affect you too much. Although it is disconcerting that people will be able to see what we posted on a certain date and have a glimpse into our pasts. At any rate, the introduction of Timeline is a good reason to examine and debate why and how we use social media.

Will how we use Facebook change?

Do we have to accept that Facebook can be, depending how you use it, an online diary of sorts, and that we are freely making personal information available by posting on it? If we didn’t want anyone to know about our personal life, we’d be better off using an actual diary and avoiding the site entirely. Or are we entitled to be in complete control of how our history is presented on Facebook, and have they gone too far this time?

It seems likely that the Timeline changes will prompt some users to opt for private profiles if they haven’t already, in order to protect their history, and exercise greater control over what they post, as this PCWorld article details how to ‘lockdown’ your profile.  But equally for some users, it may not prompt a change in their behaviour at all.

There’s still some time to go until the changes become compulsory, so we’ll have to wait and see how the debate plays out over the coming days.  To return to the figure of over 50% of respondents saying Timeline worries them, we must wonder why -  are we scared of Facebook Timeline because it makes our information more accessible to others, or because it offers us a mirror view of our online selves, a subjective look at our lives, that cuts too close to the bone?

Will the meteoric rise continue once Facebook becomes a public company, or is there a chance that the social network will end up in a similar position to its predecessors like Myspace and Bebo? Both those social networks were lauded at the time and seemingly could do no wrong, but Bebo was rumored to be closing yesterday while Justin Timberlake is trying to do something new to turn Myspace around and failing miserably. But surely Facebook is on another level and is simply too big to fail?

An Advertisers Dream

If you want to be a successful business, it’s not ultimately the amount of users or how much media coverage you get, but the amount of money you make that determines your success. The older social networks relied on banner ads and more traditional revenue streams which could only take them so far, but Facebook have invented possibly the most targeted advertising platform the world has ever seen. With this advertising platform Facebook has the ability to have revenues more like Google and less like Myspace. If you are a public company revenue is pretty much the most important factor and that is a good sign for the future of Facebook.

A Social Platform

Myspace and Bebo were websites whereas Facebook is a platform. There is a huge difference and it is the fact that Facebook is wrapping itself in to the very fabric of the web that gives it such a huge advantage. You don’t really have to be on Facebook.com itself to be using the service. You could be using a social plugin, leaving comments via their commenting system on a 3rd party website or one of the 400 million mobile users. There are plenty of huge companies that rely on Facebook as a platform (Zynga, Netflix, Spotify etc) for acquiring users and that will continue to grow. As Mark Zuckerberg says himself Facebook is becoming the “social plumbing” of the web and that is not about to change any time soon.

$10 Billion War Chest

Facebook has been extremely well funded for the last few years as investors piled into the company, but despite that they have always been a start up burning through cash. The money that they did have was used for scaling, hiring and a series of acquisitions. As soon as the company goes public though they are going to have a massive war chest of over $10 billion in cash that they can use to prop up the company and hopefully grow it as well. That money will be used for everything from acquiring smaller companies to offering increased packages to the most talented engineers in the world. Facebook have come a long way without having piles of cash, and now we are about to see what they can do with tons of money in their pockets.

Constantly Re-Inventing

Facebook are brilliant at re-inventing themselves. Look at the site now and you will see that it looks nothing like it did when it started. It doesn’t even look like it did this time last year. Facebook often upsets its users by making sweeping changes but by constantly tweaking the look and feel of the site and trying lots of new features they have been able to keep the site incredibly sticky with users spending hours at a time there. Their new features don’t always work but Facebook are certainly not scared to try new things.

The Zuckerberg Effect

It’s pretty widely accepted that the young Zuckerberg fellow is a bit of a genius and totally obsessed with improving the product. Alongside his genius is the fact that he is far less obsessed with making a quick buck or becoming famous than other founders of social networks seem to have been. Despite movies being made about him and constant media coverage, it is clear that he is obsessed with turning Facebook into a platform that rules the world rather than worrying about the $25 billion that he will be worth shortly.

All in all, I think it’s safe to say Facebook won’t turn in to another Myspace or Bebo anytime soon.