Facebook: Movement or Business? -- Journal 8 - July 27, 2008

http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1826081,00.html?cnn=yes

Time Magazine recently wrote an article about Facebook, asking whether it was a business or a ‘movement’, a term the social networking site’s CEO likes to call it. Just over one year ago, Zuckerberg reported that Facebook had 24 million users, two-thirds of whom were located outside of the United States. Now, only one year later that number has skyrocketed. Facebook now has a total of 90 million users worldwide, and Zuckerberg has pretty much guaranteed that number would reach 100 million before the year 2008 was over.

With those numbers on the rise, so is their number of advertisers. And with that, investment money is also. Facebook now has over 2 million programmers, which attracts a cool $200 million in investment.

Last year, Zuckerberg called it a ‘movement’ at their annual F8 meeting. But is that all it is or is it merely another business unit? For example, Microsoft offered to buy the social networking site for $6 billion last year. Why would Microsoft be so interested in Facebook if it were not a revenue-generating business?

To speculate whether Facebook should be considered a business or a ‘movement’ seems like a redundant question with an irrelevant link. Yes, Facebook is a ‘movement’ in itself, as it is one of the first of its kind. But, of course, it is also a business. Its founders and CEO are there to make Facebook thrive. They are in it for money, just like everyone else. And why not? If you can create a unique product and continually expand on it, why not make it work for you?

Zuckerberg’s calling Facebook a ‘movement’ will not downplay what it really is. It is a business to all of the key players, and they see an opportunity that they are going to harvest. The ‘movement’ theory is good, well, in theory. Facebook is more of a social movement than anything, but to question its business characteristics seems to discredit this site’s success.

Reference:
http://microsoft.blognewschannel.com/archives/2007/07/12/microsoft-to-buy-facebook-for-6-billion/