Facebook – the big day
Simon Andrews, founder of the full service mobile agency addictive!, on Facebook, connected TV, Google and eBay…
So later today we’ll find out how much Facebook is worth. And all the signs suggest the figure will be north of $100 billion – meaning people are paying 103 times this years’ revenues. Given the Google floatation valued them on the first day at 69 times their revenues, this is pretty bullish.
Henry Blodget of Business Insider knows a bit about tech IPOs and his headline says it all;
Facebook Insiders Pounce On IPO Frenzy – Now Dumping 85 Million More Shares On Muppets.
The hype was dented a little this week when the decision of General Motors to pull their $10 million spend on Facebook, made lots of headline. Oddly the quotes from Ford saying they remained committed to Facebook didn’t get the same prominence. As a smart friend, from a WPP media agency, tweeted – “GM are just doing it wrong”.
But the ad industry sceptics are out in force and if they are right, then the float really is muppet bait. GigaOM point out that, right now, Facebook is essentially a media company but there are other revenue models open to them.
Facebook have the opportunity to redefine how advertising works – and if they can do that while making the transition to a mobile company, there is a really lucrative future. Noah Bryer sums this up well – they have to find a way to create intent. And this is more positive thinking about the way Facebook can quickly monetise mobile – more sponsored stories, innovate around location and offers, and enable device specific targeting.
Given that around two to three thirds of active internet users are using Facebook the sheer size of the opportunity means you’d be foolish to bet against them finding ways to make money.
Our take is that we wouldn’t invest money in buying shares. But we would invest money in buying ads on the platform. Done properly they do work – and are a smart way to amplify the content created on fan pages.
New TV
Last Saturday saw the first Shazamable ads in the UK in Britain’s Got Talent from Pepsi and Cadburys. Reports suggest 50,000 people interacted with the ads, which seems a good start for this two-screen tool. We were interested to see well connected media journalist Kate Bulkley tweet; but I hear only 400 people used Zeebox for BGT.
Could it be that two-screen needs the broadcaster to prompt/remind people to interact? Which makes us wonder if/when ITV and C4 will jump into the space with a proprietary two-screen service.
Smart brands are really focused on how two-screen can work – as this quote from Pepsi suggests;
In the future, no television advertisement will be just self-contained narratives designed to entertain, inform, educate or remind consumers about products… They will be trailers into deeper branded digital experiences.
We agree – we’re very focused on this opportunity right now.
Google Knowledge Graph
While all the attention is on Facebook, Google have been busy. This week they have launched a major initiative around search called Knowledge Graph, where they seek to match searches to concepts or entities rather than just pages that match the search query.
It’s rolling out in the US first so we haven’t played with it yet – but, of course, it works on mobile too.
Other Google news this week is an update of the data on Our Mobile Planet, the excellent research source that Google launched last year and new content around the Zero Moment of Truth, the Google look at how retail works.
The other big news is the new mobile version of Google+ – where they have created a really compelling service – much preferable to the desktop version. Even if you have given up on Google+ we think this is well worth trying.
eBay
eBay has released new research suggesting retailers could boost revenues by £2.4 billion through adopting new technologies like mobile and connected TV. Following their push for better connectivity, eBay is very focused on a mobile agenda.
And they continue to innovate with mobile tools – the latest version of their fashion app enables users to take a photo of a colour or pattern and search for clothes that match on eBay.
The data derived from shopping etc is one of the key advantages that PayPal has in mobile money.
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