When I read the article on Mashable about Facebooks revenue, I thought the company is growing really well. However, after just one minute my mind started to wonder if this is really true.
I know Facebook is just building a business, and I know they started ramping advertising up just recently, and I know revenue is not their primary focus. But come on, $500 million? To put the big numbers a little bid more into perspective, just break it down a little…
If Facebook is making $500 million this year in revenue, this will mean…
- Facebook is making $41.67 million per months
- Facebook is making $9.59 million per week
- Facebook is making $1.37 million per day
- Facebook is making $57 K per hour
- Facebook is making $951 per minute
- Facebook is making $15.85 per second
That sounds pretty good. However, if you look at the revenue per active registered user, it sounds pathetic.
If Facebook is making $500 million this year on a user base of 225 million active users, this will mean…
Facebook is making less per user in a year than minimum wage per hour!
There are practically two ways Facebook can increase revenue:
- Get more bodies into the door. More active users will generate more page views, more ad inventory to sell.
- Get more revenue per ad sold. Higher ad prices will raise the revenue per active user.
To bring Facebook up to minimum wage standards, keeping the number of active users constant, the revenue would have to grow from $500,000,000 per year, to $15,768,000,000,000*!!! How would you say this..? 15 trillion 768 billion dollar?
I’m confident Facebook is growing fast and will generate tons of revenue in a couple of years. I just wonder how fast they will show improvements in this field. But in the mean time, let’s put these numbers into perspective!
* The calculation against minimum wage is not completely fair, as a person only works for 8-10 hours a day, where the calculation here is based on working days of 24 hours, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It’s flawed, but still it gives a perspective on current revenue and the need to grow bigger, faster!
I’m thinking $2.22 a user is pretty good. I don’t know about you, but how would you like half the people in the US to give you just 50 cents every year? Even is you had to share it with some employees, I think it would be great.
Here is a comparison for you. Get the rev you make in a year with this blog. Now divide it by 10% of a years worth of total unique visitors (10% is a common figured use to calculate regulars) . Are you breaking $2.00 a year with them? Most likely not.
@Rob,
Thanks for your comment Rob, and I have to agree with you, getting 50 cents from half the people in the US sounds pretty sweet.
Reason I wrote this post, is that I think people are looking too much at the big numbers, but forget to put it into perspective.
I mean, if you are Macy’s, making $2.2 per customer on a yearly basis sounds pretty low, don’t you think?
Comparing Macy’s with Facebook doesn’t make any sense I know, but still, they can project $2 billion in revenue per year; what would that mean on a customer basis per year/month or per week.
Writing a provocative post like this, might have the effect the numbers are being put into perspective.
Cheers
DG
Ok so do you look at how many ppl there are that are obtaining the revenue you know there aren’t 225 million people that make that revenue so really they have to be makin some good cash.
oh and yes i understand putting the numbers into perspective thing but really you shouldn’t make them realize they should start pumping more ads into our face and did you know that face book collects everyones information and has ties through other companies linked to the cia?
@Red Dog,
Do you have examples of how Facebook would be tied to other companies linked to the CIA?
Would be interesting to hear your thoughts on that.
I don’t share any of my information on Facebook anymore for the reason they collect the information of their users.
21 states already pay above the Federal minimum wage, and guess what? The 6 states with the highest minimum wage are also 6 of the brokest states.
Read about it, and stick around for more good content.
http://libertarianhumor.com/2009/07/10/coincidence-i-think-not/
@BigEbsBlog
What the F*** has that got to do how much money Facebook is making?
I guess you just have an automated Google alert on the keyword minimum wage which triggers you to post a comment here.
You Spammer, I hate you type of bloggers. Posting comments off topic, with a link in the comment to see if you can get more traffic to your sorry ass blog.
One more time and I give you an IP ban! Now let me see where I can post some comments on your blog, ghe ghe