Facebook Passes the Billion User Mark, But Where Will Revenue Growth Come From?

 User growth will come from new territories as the social media giant continues to eat up users' time and Likes, with almost half of all North Americans using the Facebook service to keep in touch online. But where will it see new revenue growth?

All Around the World

While the stock price might be on the way down, the user numbers are going up and up for Facebook. With almost 45% of North Americans and Australasians now on board, a third of South America, nearly as many in Europe with only Africa and Asia lagging behind in single figures. That led the company over the 1 billion mark, which he discussed in an interview on NBC. 

They are the key growth markets for the company, and it will be aiming aggressively at signing them up. Of the existing users, over 600 million now use Facebook on a smartphone or other mobile device, up from 552 million users measured in June this year.

Mobile will be key in emerging markets where they are more common than computers. Facebook is trying to adapt the service to the feature phones prevalent in Africa but will need to use marketing muscle in China and Russia where local services dominate. 

On the Face Of It

Facebook recently broke into the physical gifts market in an attempt to move on from the virtual gifts that helped boost its early growth. With long-time revenue partner Zynga also suffering, it will also be looking for the next big thing in revenue generation, with better targeted advertising already on the radar.

Gambling could  become one natural focus, with real money gambling having started in the United Kingdom via a Bingo game, and virtual sports betting being trialled in America. These and other initiatives should see revenue rising to keep the stock holders happy.

However, it may face more defections from users over the latest claim on weak privacy with private messages claimed to be publicly visible. Similarly, further attempts to monetize the service's vast user database could lead to collisions with irate users suffering growing "intrusion" into their News Feeds. 

While still in a very strong position, and dominating the social media scene, Facebook still has plenty of time to find its feet as a traded company, but every move and misstep will come under increasing focus and scrutiny. 

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

Cloud Computing is Confusing to Americans

A national survey shows Americans are confused about the idea of cloud computing with 95 percent of those who said they don't use the cloud acutally being shown to do so.

Fifty one percent of respondents thought a storm could interfere with cloud computing. While the public at large, who responded to the survey via email no less, may be confused about what exactly the cloud is, enterprises and savvy consumers are both well ahead of them.

Cloud Opportunities Abound

Even if people pretend to know what the cloud is when they really don't (22 percent of respondents admitted to this), it's worth noting those people get the idea is at least important enough to fake knowing about. In other words, the cloud is here to stay even if the masses don't get some of its finer points. 

For enterprises, there are mixed signals in some cases, but many are adopting the cloud for a variety of purposes. The main roadblock, according to the survey, is actually cost, with security and privacy concerns following close behind.

The Cloud doesn't compute for a wide swath of the American public.

Citrix, an IT infrastructure company, commissioned Wakefield Research to conduct the survey and among the benefits people said they saw for businesses, improvements in consumer engagement were number one. 

BYOD Front and Center

Being able to get critical information, documents and access to work tools from just about anywhere is changing the way companies do business, and society is responding accordingly. The cloud is seen as a great way to engage customers, clients and coworkers and to allow them access to content from a variety of places. 

One big takeaway from the survey is nearly 60 percent of respondents said they felt the workplace of the future will exist entirely in the cloud. That's a pretty optimistic number, though we don't know how far into the future those people may have been thinking. Tell us in the comments if you work 100 percent in the cloud or how long you think it will be before this is the case. 

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com