About Me 0014: About Making Money

Deadline confirms the deal with Universal but isn’t able to say whether Julian Assange will participate in the film. Regardless, the movie could be a firebrand that surpasses the interest generated by Mr. Gibney’s last few films.

Julian Assange, the founder of the whistleblower organization WikiLeaks and therefore responsible for the release of thousands of confidential government documents, is a figure that people tend to either love or hate. To some he’s a hero and a champion of free speech and democracy; others see him as an enemy and someone who endangers our freedom by compromising the inner workings of government. (And there are probably many who see him as a troublesome, egocentric kid.)

All that being the case I’d say that Alex Gibney is the perfect man for this job, and I’m eagerly awaiting the results of his work.

In addition, producers at Josephson Entertainment and Michelle Krumm Prods have optioned Andrew Fowler‘s forthoming biography of Mr. Assange, called The Most Dangerous Man in the World. They plan a ‘suspenceful drama thriller’ based on the bio. The book follows the WikiLeaks founder from childhood to the present day. Producers compare the story they want to tell to All the President’s Men.

No word on a screenwriter, director or cast for the biopic at this point. Too bad Steven Soderbergh likely won’t have any interest in this; he’d be great for it. [Variety]

We cannot know how many little advertisers are doing the same thing as Make-My-Baby.com, only on a more discreet scale. If Facebook could not spot a company which was its third largest advertiser, it must have been rather more difficult to spot smaller ones. Obviously, there are legal ramifications to changing people's browser settings without permission, and there may be lawsuits. Facebook may have to restate its earnings, after everything comes out in the wash. The last time around, there were cases of people who were supposedly making large profits, and eventually turned out to be running losses, burning through the investors' money.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110118/02531712708/facebooks-3rd-biggest-advertiser-acc used-being-affiliate-toolbar-scam-facebook-says-its-never-heard-company.shtml

My experience with blogs, and before that, with bulletin board sites, back in the 1980's, is that huge numbers of nominal registered members are people who signed up, decided it wasn't for them, and moved on, leaving derelict accounts behind. Obviously, you can't make any advertising revenue from someone who hasn't accessed his account for years, and has in fact forgotten the password. Likewise, the user might have bought a new computer, effectively discarding installed software. Someone might have moved his bookmark file, his e-mails, and his address book for him, but all the other stuff might not have gotten transferred.

The third point is that there simply aren't that many people with first-world incomes, only a billion or so. If five hundred million people have, in effect, taken the introductory offer, and either stayed or moved on, one is beginning to get to the upper side of the S-curve. Growth will become increasingly problematic. Facebook will be increasingly trying to sell to people who do not behave like teenagers, and do not want to be treated like teenagers. All this "friending" stuff, for example.

The historian A. J. P. Taylor once observed that a generation of college students is only four years, and this would presumably apply to Facebook, which is nothing if not collegiate. That said, buying Facebook on the basis of "twenty year's purchase" is highly unrealistic. A new "generation" may start doing something different, while the current generation "outgrows" Facebook.

recently leaked figures of Facebook's income appear to be in the neighborhood of five hundred million per year. On that basis, Facebook might be worth two billions, not fifty billions.

http://news.slashdot.org/story/11/01/07/1648251/Facebooks-Revenues-Leaked?from=rss

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Monday, January 24, 2011

About Making Money

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