All posts in General

• January 8, 2011

  Facebook to Generate $1B in Profits This Year?

  I was just reading in one of my favorite blogs, GigaOm, about documents unearthed because of Goldman Sachs’ investment in Facebook. Though the Facebook seems to have generated about $77 million in net income this year, it could generate as much as $1B in profits next year.

  TechCrunch even published a table showing their different revenue line items. I was actually surprised by the $75M run rate for virtual goods that, although substantial, was lower than I had thought it would be.  It’s interesting to note, also, that while Facebook stays private, Linkedin is rumored to soon go public.

  There’s an interesting quote at the end of the GigaOm article from a Piper Jaffray analyst stating that Facebook continues to take advertising revenue away from Google.  There’s definitely a lot of conjecture about what Google should be doing in regards to social media.  One of their own VPs actually made a statement to the effect that they’re letting Facebook take over that space.  Talking more about Google, I found a recent article by David Linthicum quite interesting.  In that article, he talks about why Google should acquire Amazon!

  Finally, it’s not only about Facebook, other sites like Quora and Groupon are growing rapidly thanks to their social component.  Many ask if Google has ceded this space to Facebook and others or whether their GoogleMe product might better position them in this space.  What do you think? Will “social” increase or decrease Google’s relevance over time or is that the wrong question to ask?

  Below is a larger version of the Facebook Economy Infographic from VisualEconomics:

  

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• January 7, 2011

  The Promise of Social Media

  I just read an article in Mashable written by Douglas Rushkoff, author of Life Inc.: How Corporatism Conquered the World, and How We Can Take It Back. He has a problem with the way that marketing and corporations seem to want to take over something that he says has the potential to “generate the biggest change in how culture and commerce operate since the inventing of the printing press.”

  Them there is pretty big words and it’s great validation of my own beliefs.  Specifically, I just feel that all the talk about social media and these new digital tools at our disposal have so much more potential beyond the becoming the province of sharp marketers.  Within a business context, I see much opportunity for, what I call, digital innovation.  Nevertheless, I like Rushkoff’s broader interest in seeing social media as offering the potential to connect with peers without the oversight of “controlling interests.”

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• January 6, 2011

  The Digital and the Physical

  I was just reading the reports from the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas about the new tablets that are coming out as well as BusinessWeek’s article on the future of tablets. In my opinion, the way to look at this is not the future of “tablets”, but the future of making the division between the virtual and physical worlds more transparent.
  This could be a good thing or a bad thing, or both, but it’s definitely something that’s happening. In the business world, organizations that continually view the digital world as a quaint space where they inhabit by outsourcing specific activities (online marketing, etc.), increase their risk of being disrupted. The way to view the current state, IMHO, is to completely rethink how to deliver value to your customers taking into account the new posibilities enabled by the digital: Digital Innovation.

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• January 5, 2011

  Thinking about 2011

  I’m not going to write a full-fledged predictions post, but have been thinking about what’s on the horizon in terms of big changes. First off, who knows what’s coming on the economic front, but when you have guys like GE CEO Jeff Immelt saying that we’re in a reset period, you know big things are happening on the digital innovation front.

  In technology, it’s interesting to see the tablet movement as the virtual and physical worlds continue to meet (accessing digital information is becoming more transparent). Forrester just revised their tablet forecast and says that tablets should overtake laptops by 2015.

  Finally, the whole cloud computing thing continues to accelerate. The disruptive power of this technology which levels the playing field for smaller companies that want to “act” biggger and bigger companies that want to “act” more agile, continues to play out. As BusinessWeek published a couple of days ago, the M&A activity in cloud computing will really heat up in the coming year as HP and others look to buy their way into innovation.

  Finally, I’m pretty psyched about the kick-off of the Foundation Institute initiative here in Colombia and expect a good turn out of people attending the launch event.  Last night, I finished my next Kienyke article about  this launch and hope to get interesting feedback from it.

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