Facebook have 18 million customers, plenty. Nevertheless MySpace has 10-0 million + and offered for a mere $580 million to News Corps in 2005. Clicking site preview seemingly provides tips you could tell your uncle. Facebook offered to Google for a reported $1.65 billion in 2006 but it serves over 10-0 million movies a day and has over 2-5 million visitors a mo...

Bing! Happen to be in talks with Facebook for over a year now and apparently recently got shy at Facebooks $1 million asking price but as I can describe here Yahoo! have missed on an absolute bargain.

Facebook have 18 million customers, plenty. However MySpace has 10-0 million + and sold for only $580 million to News Corps in 2005. You-tube sold to Google for a noted $1.65 billion in 2006 but it has over 2-5 million visitors a month and provides over 100 million videos a day. So what makes Facebook so important? I-t gets somewhat huge traffic levels although not on par with YouTube or MySpace. Despite now being open to everyone it started life as an exclusive community for students (you needed an e-mail to register) and that is still its main user group. To get extra information, please gander at: go.

So wheres the money?

Currently Facebook features mainstream banner advertising on consumers homepages and selected pages through the site. Adverts are unobtrusive and random in so much as theyre not directed at any particular user- theyre only offered to the entire site on a random basis. Facebook are doing okay using this design on-the basis of the quantity of page impressions they receive, although in reality theyre keeping promotion at least in order to produce the value of-the site for its eventual purchase which will almost certainly happen in 2007/8. Wise men!

The power of information

Register with Facebook and quickly you can find yourself giving out large amounts of useful personal information. Think about it Facebook know your name, they know how old you're (really your D.O.B which will be infinitely more valuable as Ill carry on to spell out), they know if youre man or woman, they know your neighborhood, your postcode if you choose to give it away (although I doubt many people choose this), they know if youre individual, in a relationship (and who with), married, separated etc, they know your sexual orientation. Okay so you can answer all these questions as honestly, dishonestly or vaguely as you like but from what Ive seen people happily give precise information about themselves as its their friends and potential friends who are planning to see it- and no-one else right?

But what else do Facebook know? Well they know where you went to school, where you work, more sinisterly your political views and religious. From this we are able to start to develop a fairly valuable market account. As Im telling Facebook I might as well tell Im Male, 22 to you (born in August), Straight, in a relationship, traditional, atheist from Brighton, England. Visited college at Blatchington Mill Secondary, school at a location called BHASVIC, University at Bournemouth. Using this information we can bring more assumptions- I live in Brighton and on the basis of the site of my schools catchment place we can fairly accurately guide places in Brighton I learn about, visit, and live in (think Google maps API). Im a conservative from a reasonably wealthy place completely time work therefore Im probably white, middle-income group with a decent disposable income.

So what else? Facebook know what you look like, they probably know what you used to look like a few years ago as well. Possibly most significantly they know who your friends are, they know how you know them, they know when you talk to them, what they appear to be and eventually they know exactly the same information about them as they know about you- youre passions, likes and dislikes and your friends tastes too.

They know your current email address, so if you are using Hotmail, Yahoo they know! Mail etc. They know your phone number so they could fairly easily work out your phone service. So they might work out your ISP they've your IP address. They know where youve attained the website from so they know what search-engine you use (enter Yahoo! And Google for the bidding war), what browser youre on, they know if youre visually impaired or have learning disabilities from your options on your browser.

Facebook know when Im logging in and from where so they know the hours I work, if Im creating an online business at work, the pages I keep Facebook to visit or even the pages I come from so they know what other websites I look at. I will set my present status and tell Facebook exactly what Im doing or feeling right this second.

Ok so you have the picture right now, one final thing though, is your Facebook password exactly like your mail account password, your web and telephone banking password, every other password you used in your everyday life (since until I wrote this post mine was!) just how much more information do you want to hand out?

Whats the danger here?

Genuinely its very slim. Facebook certainly are a great couple of men and a fantastic site, I enjoy using it and despite knowing what I know about information security and such I choose to hand out a large piece of the information Ive written about here.

Google! And Facebook

Therefore if Yahoo!, Google or god forbid Microsoft properly buy Facebook (as I say Im fairly confident this may happen this year) the Orwellian lucid dream suggested by this article becomes a perpetual headache. Imagine an organization who have made millions and dominated the fastest-growing industry on the planet by devel-oping methods which investigate hundreds of millions of pages of random information (the net) and classify that information with the ultimate purpose of matching it to firms and selling advertising.

The search algorithm let loose on Facebook

Imagine the various search engines let loose o-n Facebook. An algorithm tuned to pick out report data (John, created 13.08.84). Place it to keywords in particular interests i.e. Identify further on this related site by clicking www.ofinfinity.com/tag/william-telish/. soccer, Manchester United. Plot your location on a road i.e. Brighton, England. Follow links to your best friends with similar passions i.e. Bob and Dave who live round the corner and serve me an advert some thing like:

Happy birthday for in a few days John.

Did you know its Daves birthday the week after?

You will want to book seats for Brighton and Hove Albion compared to. Manchester united on 12.08.07

Just click here to book now and get 3 tickets for the price of 2 (why not ask joe to return along- he supports you and Brighton havent spoken in a while).

Book to-day and well give a half-price car to you from your home to the game with trashy-limos.com.

Today thats effective marketing and its just nearby. If Facebook has 25 million users by the time its sold, 1 / 2 of whom visit every day thats the absolute minimum 12.5 million page impressions a day. Offer the advert above at $1 a click (that is much less than its price based on the existing AdWords CPC model) expect a click through rate of up to 10% based on the precise nature of the marketing and thats $1.2 million minimum a day- nearly $ a million a year. Develop that user group to 50 million (reasonable if Google or Yahoo! Could make use of their present user database) and sell ad space o-n an affiliate base say the soccer tickets at $300 with a 10% conversion price and a 10% affiliate kickback =$3 per user x 2-5 million users =$75 million a day or $2737500000 in year 1! OK lets perhaps not get overly enthusiastic people arent planning to spend $300 every other day however the logics there and hence the money.

Can the audience except it?

Greater quality marketing means less advertising- less so you cant find what youre seeking for, less popups websites rammed with ads, less low quality goods. This is actually the major driving force behind the achievement of search marketing programs and profile based advertising is already in place with Googles individualized search returning more precise AdWords advertisements than previously possible. If it falls into the arms of Microsoft then people may be more wary but with the picture of Google or Yahoo! Since the company doesnt offer you products and services directly and he service and Facebook account information is viewed as soft information is free. Its how a internet goes and I feel its where well be in 5 years.

Identification robbery

The purpose Ive been creating tediously through this post is that we should be more careful by what information we stop trying and to whom. If the internet was a region it'd be Nazi Germany and Facebook would function as the Gestapo! Cultural resources like Facebook are given the sort of privileged information fascist authorities all over the world could and have killed for. Guide To About William Telish contains more concerning when to deal with it. We moan about identity cards being presented in the UK (ironically theres several Facebook organizations committed to the cause) but we happily quit personal details to a whole lot of college geeks in the states who are ultimately planning on selling our details to the highest bidder (the price of any site is based on the size, quality and amount of information they have about their traffic- but best of luck to them) possibly to the organization who already control the most of world business systems through the windows platform.

This post is not meant to scare- its merely a recognition of the ability of new web systems, their possibly programs and if your Facebook friends are your real friends shouldnt to present the question- they know your birthday? Are Facebook really going to buy you a present?!.