AffiliatesNeeded.Com What's New In Affiliate Marketing

With over half a billion users, if Facebook was a country, it would be the 3rd largest country in the world. But it would also be, by far, the poorest. New revenue projections for 2010 would place Facebook’s GDP per capita in 2010 at just over $2, less than 1.3 percent of the world’s lowest GDP.

Of course, Facebook is not a country, it’s a business — it produces revenue, not GDP. And its revenues are expected to more than double in 2010. But even at that rate (and partly because of it), the numbers still leave some room to doubt  the company’s business model and future.

Average Facebook User Worth Less Than $3

Between the company’s ad revenue and virtual currency trade, Facebook is expected to more than double its revenue in 2010. As AdAge reports:

A new estimate from eMarketer says the company will book $1.285 billion in global advertising alone this year, almost double the estimated $665 million the company took in last year. That figure doesn’t include Facebook’s so-called virtual currency trade, which would nonetheless account for a fraction of the company’s overall business.

With more than 500 million active users, this places the average value of a Facebook user around $2.57. Not surprisingly, however, the average US user is worth a lot more.

As TechCrunch reports, “ US ad spending on Facebook is estimated to be $835 million this year, up from $500 million in 2009.” With the US accounting for about 30% of active Facebook users, that puts that average worth of an American Facebook user around $55.

Even though the average US Facebook user is worth about 22 time more than the average, that still places the value of Facebook’s “richest citizens” at about only one-third of world’s poorest – Burundi (see link above).

Bad Math

Of course, any economist of mathematician would scoff at my calculations. First, calculating GDP per capita is a bit more complicated than this.

Secondly, not all US ad spend is being driven by US users. For example, just as many US advertisers target users abroad, many non-US advertisers are targeting US users.

Nonetheless, the analogy, while purposefully absurd, does bring to light some interesting challenges still faced by the social networking giant.

Facebook Revenue & User Value in Context

There are three important ways we should look at these number before jumping to any conclusions.

First, revenue is not profit. Facebook is a private company, and we have no idea what its overhead is. Essentially, we don’t know how much of that projected $1.285 billion will be tied up in salaries, infrastructure, and debt.

Second, the rate of growth itself is not sustainable. Many savvy investors would be wary of such growth trends. After all, growth rates can’t continue forever at this rate. So some hard questions loom:

• When growth slows, how much will it be stunted?
• And when it does slow, will it be enough to cover overhead, such as salaries, maintenance, and debts?
• Is the indicator used my eMarketer, about the amount of money advertisers are spending on Facebook, one of good marketing strategy or lemming-like mentality?

Finally, what is a profitable user value for Facebook? Many affiliate programs will pay more than $2.50 for a lead or new user. So we have to wonder at what point does Facebook break into the black with their average user value.

Meaningless Speculation

As with all things digital, all this speculation is worth bupkis. Just as Facebook could find some way to revolutionize ecommerce, it can also end up being the next MySpace.

For now, there are only two things of which we can be sure: (1) with advertisers spending that much on Facebook, it’s an advertising opportunity we can’t afford not to at least  explore; and (2) given how ads are targeted through Facebook, the social network will most certainly change advertiser expectations across the board.

While constructing an internet business site, you need a certain site that will be right for you and your company. You will want a web site, which is attractive, as this will draw in internet visitors. Your website must be easily navigated within as well as functional.

Develop an idea for your own site

You will have to come up with a good idea for the site design, which you need. It wouldn’t hurt to brainstorm on this idea. Keep in mind that first impressions are everything with marketing even more so within the online community. You can play around with some sketches while arranging the designs as you want. Remember that you must concentrate on practicality and logical reasoning when you attempt to institute your design.

Consider hiring a web design business or an independent web creator

You will need to hire a web site design organization or an independent web site developer to start your own plans for your site. You will want a internet site designer who specializes in social networking websites. You would like a site designer who is experienced and not someone who lacks training for such venture. You would like to keep the communication open and you need your site designer to be accessible to you during this project. I would recommend that you and your own internet site designer speak over the telephone as compared to email or chat messaging this will just be sure you are on the same level and you both understand of what is occurring referencing your own website.

Project proposals

You need to ask for a job proposal for approval from the site developer. This is a great idea, which will produce what the web site creator wants to perform with your own social networking website. The proposal will also develop the timeframe which for the job to be completed.

Stay on top of the job

You’ll want to remain on top of the project for your site. Do not be too pushy or demanding while ensuring that you communicate precisely what you want referencing your internet site design as well as generally.

Just be sure you can make additions and upgrades later on on your website

The coding and software, which the site developer utilizes, should be the type, which can be extended or expanded upon, this, will ensure that later on down the road you can add improvements or upgrades and this will ensure the whole project of your own web site will not have to be redone.

When you are working with a web design organization or an independent website creator, you need to ensure that a non-disclosure agree will be signed by both parties involved to ensure the job as well as the concept of the project is protected.

Learn how to make money online by visiting my make money online website today!

Shortcut to pragmatic knowledge about one way links – read the site. The times have come when concise info is truly only one click of your mouse, use this opportunity.

How can I make money on the internet is a question being asked by thousands of people every day. Making money online is not as complicated as it seems. You just need to know what will need to be done by you in order to be successful making money yourself with the help of the internet.

The first thing you will need to do is to find the right idea for you to make money. There are so many different ideas that can be used but you are the only one that can decide on the right one for you. Be sure you find an idea that you will enjoy because if you don’t enjoy your business then you will always struggle to make money online.

The second important thing to do is to learn all you can about the business you have chosen. There will be a lot of information that you won’t know or tasks that you won’t know how to complete.

You have to be willing to take the time to educate yourself on these things because they are imperative to making money. The amount of things you have to do and learn how to do will depend on the idea that you have chosen to start your business.

For example: If you chose to use affiliate programs to make money then you will be able to get started right away because everything will already be set up for you. You will just have to learn how to market the programs to make money along with a few other important things.

If you have chosen to create your own products then you will need to take the extra steps to learn how to get things set up correctly before you can start making money.

Learning how to market your new business is the third most important thing to do because marketing is the only way to let people know you are there so they can spend their money with you. You have to be willing to learn how to effectively do as many marketing methods as you can.

Some of the different marketing methods you will have to learn to use effectively include:

- Article marketing

- Forum marketing

- SEO or search engine optimization

- Social networking

You want to know how to use these effectively along with many others so you can have five to seven of them working to bring traffic to your new business at all times. Traffic is what leads to the money you want to make online.

You are now armed with the important knowledge that so many people are searching for when it comes to the question; How can I make money on the internet? Be sure to use this knowledge to your advantage and get your own business started as soon as possible so you can begin making money online as quickly as possible.

Professional Internet marketer Mark Babcock helps average people make money on the internet and create extraordinary incomes from home. If you are looking for extra money ideas visit his website today so he can start helping you. http://www.cmbwealth.com/

Find practical information about the topic of one way links – please study the site. The times have come when concise information is really only one click away, use this opportunity.

Foursquare came roaring out of the box less than six months ago and has, by all accounts, become the leader in location-based services. But that isn’t stopping Gowalla from aggressively going after its rival.

According to CNET, Gowalla has just launched some new features Foursquare doesn’t have, plus a couple of high profile promotions that are designed to boost its credibility and usage.

One Gowalla promotion is a collaboration with Nike and Lance Armstrong’s cancer-fighting Livestrong foundation that ties in with the Tour de France. Messages of inspiration submitted by the public are reviewed, and some are selected for a kind of instant printing along the cyclists’ route using a robotic “chalkbot” machine. Gowalla’s role in all this is that the chalkbot will check in with its location on Gowalla, and it will post photos of the painted messages as well. Users of Gowalla can also check into Nike retail locations and receive a Tour de France virtual “pin.”

A second Gowalla promotion is tied in with the tenth anniversary of crowdsourcing t-shirt site Threadless.com. The “Threadless Everywhere Tour” is making its way across the country this summer in a converted Airstream trailer. The trailer will be a mobile Gowalla spot, employing a GPS to update its location automatically. A Gowalla user who checks in on the Airstream could receive a free limited edition t-shirt.

These promotions notwithstanding, Foursquare seems to have a big jump on its competitor. Foursquare has gained traction with big advertisers and even publishers.

Foursquare also has a lot more users and is apparently growing faster than Gowalla. Analytics firm RJMetrics monitored Foursquare and Gowalla APIs for the past four weeks, and the results indicate that Foursquare has over 1.9 million users to Gowalla’s 340,000 or so. Foursquare’s daily percentage growth rate is 75 percent higher than Gowalla’s, according to the analysis. Foursquare has approximately 5.6 million venues to Gowalla’s 1.4 million venues.

As might be expected, other competitors are popping up in this space, and some of them could be players. Brightkite, for example, was compared with Foursquare and Gowalla in the “Check-in Services Bug Battle” conducted by more than 300 uTesters from nearly 40 countries. Kevin Tofel analyzed the results for GigaOM. He found that while Foursquare was tops in Ease-of-Use and Social Media Integration, Brightkite came in second over Gowalla in both those categories. Gowalla, however, bested Foursquare and Brightkite in Location Accuracy. Tofel points out that there are other competitors to consider, including Geodelic, MyTown, and Where.com.

Location-based services are really poised for growth. In mid-June, Twitter announced Twitter Places for geo-tagging and said the new feature would soon link to Foursquare and Gowalla. The just-introduced Yelp 2.0 has location check-in services. Google Buzz has location capabilities. Facebook isn’t sitting on the geolocation sidelines, either.

Location-based services and advertising is a hot new field. It would be wise to keep an eye on Gowalla and Foursquare to see what innovations and changes they bring in the next few months.

So Facebook did it. They became “the next MySpace,” and by proxy, the MySpace Killer. But what if being the next MySpace also meant going the way of MySpace?

Well, some new data suggest that two might go hand in hand. A recent study shows that teens might be losing interest in the social network.

So what can be the cause of all this? Well, it’s really anyone guess, but if I was placing bets, I’d put my money on the fact that Facebook is more of a set of features than an online destination.

An Aging User Base

Last month, ROI released a study that suggested many younger Facebook users are suffering from Facebook Fatigue. As the Social Times reported:

Social networks in general take up a large portion of teens’ time online – over 80% of it according to this survey. The Facebook burnout isn’t affecting all of these youthful social networkers: 90% of teens say they use social networks and prefer Facebook above all others. However, nearly a fifth of these (19%) say they use the site less often, or have stopped altogether in recent weeks. Also, 21% of those surveyed say that their friends are using Facebook less often than before.

Now, in social media, it’s also important to remember that the children are the future. So when the young give up on you, it might be cause for concern.

• First, an aging user-base is a user-base that gets closer to death everyday. And when your user-base starts dying, so do you.
• More importantly, (and immediately), when young users give up on you, it suggests that there’s something newer and better out there, and that that something is coming for your market share.

But this study doesn’t indicate where these teens might be going. After all, this trend may very well be seasonal (i.e. teens on summer vacation spending more time outdoors).

So should Facebook still be worried? Well, maybe and maybe not. It all depends on how these users are interacting with their personal network.

Features, Functions, and Friends Oh My…

The thing about Facebook is that it’s just a toolbox of bells and whistles that we use to interact with our personal networks. And the thing about toolboxes is that their contents (the tools) can be moved into another box at any moment.

Kids might be losing interest in Facebook as an online destination. But they’re surely not losing interest in (1) their social lives, (2) interactive media, and (3) using digital media to manage their social lives. So how are these young Facebook refugees “staying connected”?

Well, the obvious answer is their mobile phones. Specifically, it’s very possible that these youths are using Facebook Mobile to stay connected, and just don’t consider it the same thing as “being on Facebook.”

And as much as this might mean good news for Facebook, it could also spell disaster. For instance, how many of its features does Facebook actually own?

Currently, plenty of mobile devices come equipped with social networking apps that cross-reference your contact list with your social network profiles. This allows you to keep phone numbers, Twitter handles, and Facebook profiles all under one contact.

But there’s no reason why Facebook has to be a part of that equation. For example, future releases of Google’s Android could very well offer users Facebook-like functionality in a closed network environment — i.e. allowing you to share “status updates” and other UGC directly with your phone contacts.

Such mobile OS features could pose a serious challenge to Facebook. Not only would they represent an alternative, but they’d also skirt many of the privacy issues/controversy that Facebook has been struggling with. So it’s no wonder that Facebook might be working on a mobile OS.

The Pitfalls of Success

Becoming the next MySpace, Facebook, or Twitter is a bit like making a deal with devil. You’ll rise to glory, but before you reach to top, new technology can outpace you and render you obsolete.

If a mass Facebook-exodus happened tomorrow, all that would be left was a mountain of user data that would depreciate drastically in value with every passing day. This would be particularly troubling for the social network because that data would’ve never had a chance to mature — investors would be sitting on a mountain of junk bonds.

Of course, a handful of teenagers giving up on Facebook is hardly a death knell. And it’s not as though they’re turning to some newer, sexier, more financially viable alternative.

Facebook still probably has plenty of breathing room, and they may very well be working on the next steps in both their revenue model and user experience. For their sake, let’s just hope that Mark Zuckerberg didn’t set out to be “the next MySpace,” and if he did, let’s hope that he doesn’t get his wish.

The last time that Facebook tried to seize control of the internet, it was by using Facebook Connect to pull everyone else’s content within its walls. Well, it seems that Facebook might be opening up another front in its fight for world (wide web) domination, and this time, Google might actually be worried.

Facebook seems looking to break out of its web-based cage and enter into personal devices by developing its own operating system. TechCrunch recently reported that Facebook has poached some new hires (including 2 Googlers) with extensive experience in OS development, including:

• Matthew Papakipos, Google’s Director of Engineering who started and led Google’s Chrome OS project
• Jocelyn Goldfein, a former VP at VMware and the General Manager of their desktop business unit
• Eric Tseng, previously Google’s senior Android Developer

Googler Implications

Consequently, it’s no wonder rumors have surfaced that Google is (1) scared, and (2) working on a Facebook competitor called Google Me.

After all, there are two main implications, here, for Google. First, given Facebook’s user base, the potential for a Facebook OS to attain critical mass is considerable.

More importantly, such an OS would mean that it wouldn’t matter where the content was because the user would always be within Facebook’s walled-garden.

Just imagine: an OS that did everything that Chrome or Android does, but also makes it easier to interact with your friends on your favorite social network.

It could give Facebook a considerable edge over Google. Technically, Facebook users’ Google sessions would all be inside the wall. Facebook could gather data on how every one of its OS users use Google — including what they search, what they click on, and what’s in their Gmail.

Of course, Facebook is not the next Google. They don’t even seem to be trying to be.

But given Google’s track record with social networking, maybe we should be asking: Can Google be the next Facebook?

UPDATE on Google Me: It looks like we might have glimpse of just how Google Me is supposed to work.  Search Engine Land reported yesterday that Google has added Google Buzz links to its social search. This means that content from any account tied to your Google Buzz will now show up when anyone in your social circle does a search:

How does Google determine my social network? [...] In short, Google examines:

• Google Reader: if you have a Google Reader account, any content such as blogs that you subscribe to are considered part of your circle
• Google Chat: anyone you’ve enabled to chat with is considered part of your social circle
• Google Contacts: Anyone you’ve classified as friends, family or coworkers is part of your circle
• Google Profile: Anyone’s content you’ve associated with yourself via your profile is examined to locate people to add to your circle

So it looks like rather than trying to pull everyone (and every thing) within its walls like Facebook, Google’s strategy might be to pull everyone’s personal social network out into the open.

The gargantuan numbers being generated by Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are of paramount importance for marketers.  These numbers set the tone for why social media has already changed the manner in which major advertisers are now defining their media strategy. More and more companies are realizing the potential social media may have.

Famecount.com is a British website that reports on usage trends across Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. Famecount uses data reported via the APIs of the three services and then categorizes that data to create rankings.

The leading Performer of the moment is Lady Gaga, with over 8,475,000 Facebook fans, over 4,500,000 Twitter followers, and over 303,000 YouTube subscribers. Those are awesome numbers, but she’s an entertainment phenomenon, after all. Let’s take a look at something a little less hip – commercial brands – to see which companies are making the grade in social media.

According to Famecount’s popularity index, which is an aggregate of all three of the leading social media, the top three brands in social media worldwide are (1) Starbucks, (2) Coca-Cola, and (3) Skittles. Starbucks has over 7,700,000 Facebook fans, over 920,000 Twitter followers, and more than 6,600 YouTube subscribers, to Coke’s 5,700,000 Facebook fans, 32,000 Twitter followers, and more than 9,500 YouTube subscribers. Starbucks comes in at 68.81 percent to Coca-Cola’s 52.54 percent on the Famecount index. Lady Gaga, by the way, is 100 percent on the index.

Starbucks and Coca-Cola leading the pack may be expected, but some of the ten most popular brands might surprise you. They include a remarkable range of industries: food (Oreos), drink (Red Bull), airlines (JetBlue Airways), technology (Dell), supermarkets (Whole Foods Market), and online retailers (Zappos.com and Woot.com).

Over my years in marketing, I’ve learned to take numbers with a grain of salt, so I don’t necessarily agree with the notion of a popularity index, which might skew the data and show a somewhat arbitrary ranking. For example, Whole Foods has just 264,000 Facebook fans, but because of its 1,770,000 Twitter followers, the company ranks as the number four brand according to the Famecount index.

But let’s put that aside and consider the implications of the raw numbers. Consider Starbucks’ 7,700,000 Facebook fans, for example. That number is more than the circulation of Better Homes and Gardens magazine, the third largest magazine in the United States. It’s about 10 percent of the worldwide viewers of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, the world’s most watched television program in 2009.

For any company to generate interest from almost eight million people is, from a marketing perspective, nirvana.

That’s why you see Fortune 500 companies scrambling to gain a presence on Facebook and Twitter. That’s why you see Starbucks soliciting ideas from customers, and why you see companies like Pepsi and Coca-Cola trying to outdo each other in the social media arena.  That’s why you see companies like Visa using YouTube instead of television advertising during the World Cup.

For marketers, it is all about numbers. And when marketers look at social media, they see the kind of huge numbers that make them want to shift their promotional dollars from traditional media to social media.