Sources tell us that Bill Gates has topped using Facebook. And it’s not just Facebook, WSJ reports that  the amount of time the average person spends on a social-networking site has dropped 14% over the last four months. Apparently they’re turned off by too much advertising on social-networking sites.

Hmmm – seems there is some confusion here – people aren’t switching off because social networking sites have no value to them, they’re switching off because of all the collateral stuff that comes with spending time on them – push emails, advertising etc etc.

So maybe, just maybe, the model is wrong. Find a new way to monetize that doesn’t necessitate lots of pushed advertising to users, but that still allows them to use the service (or the parts of it that have value to them at least). Or build the social network platform such that it is an ffshoot of a monetized service – that way there would be do imperative for advertising on the social networking part of the platform – is it just be or is some of this a no-brainer?

Ben Kepes

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

1 Comment
  • maybe a part of the problem is you get on there, find out who’s in there, look around, connect, get involved for a while. i.e. the experience is front loaded and you hit a peak quickly. The follow on is a barage of emails, people chomping you, etc. The fun of the ride eases when repetion becomes the experience.

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