I first noticed with Facebook, what was once a free service, an incredible platform to build your business, to market, and to gather a tribe, reaching out to the mass has turned into a profiting market for sponsors, advertisers, but specifically, Facebook.
It wasn’t always that way. Or at least, it hasn’t always been done right.
Newspapers companies started out reaching the mass, then they implemented (full-force) advertising in the papers, viewership slowly decreased and now newspapers reach a niche market while advertisers still make money.
The moment when newspapers focused on getting their income from advertising and making it a competition among advertisers for space is what I call Free Fall Out. It was at that moment the newspaper companies profit largely due to advertisers. From there is the critical moment that I believe is a large reason why the newspaper industry is dying.
At their prime, the newspaper industry used the money from advertisers to advertise their newspaper even more. Much like many businesses (even today, gasp!) businesses are taking their advertising revenue to create more advertising for themselves.
This seems to be a slow profit method.
Now let’s look at Facebook. Once a free platform, now has been opened to advertisers. Rather than Facebook using the revenue from advertisers to self-advertise, I see a new Facebook platform change nearly every month.
Facebook, while still funding advertising, has put more of an effort toward improving it’s interface to attract a larger newer audience. I think this is smart for one specific reason. It doesn’t so much matter if they lose their appeal to current veteran Facebook users, because new users are more susceptible to buying into the advertisements that Facebook profits to put on your screen.
By improving the platform, they can make more from letting others advertise rather than the old newspaper age belief that by advertising more, they can make more from letting others advertise.
I look forward to seeing how the newest version of Gmail pans out. Right now promotion emails go into the promotion category. What happens when a wealthy company says to Google that they will pay them X amount of dollars to have their email placed in the primary category?
Alas, every phenomenal service is free for you… at first.
Stay Positive & Don’t Forget, You’re The Real Product
Garth E. Beyer
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