Ask a teenager what made the developers of Facebook so successful, and he probably won’t be able to tell you. He’ll be enamored with these young men who made billions of dollars developing some of the greatest technology working today. He’ll be able to tell you it is cool, but he probably won’t be able to figure out how Mark Zukerberg turned cool into a huge profit giant. He kept “cool” free from advertising for as long as he could. Mark Zukerberg is passionate about open source networking and sharing online. Sharing is free. People like Zukerberg signal that free is the new business model.
Once Facebook hit a certain number of users, early investors started seeing a profit as subtle ads were placed in the website’s sidebar. There are no big banner ads. The focus is still on social networking and sharing information for free, but because of the huge number of Facebook users, the percentage of ad clicks can be small and still bring down a big revenue for investors.
Pop ups are an irritating business model. The subtle style of marketing that is used by Google ads and Facebook guarantee that whatever comes up on the sidebar corresponds with the subject matter on that page. No one is forcing anything the reader wouldn’t want on them. If people are passionate about an idea, and they can share it for free, they’re more likely to explore a well integrated ad on the page. By letting free dominate the business model, then the potential buyers are more likely to be there when it does become time to start marketing.