作者：Justin Kistner

Facebook万众瞩目的IPO已过去好几天，新闻媒体争相报道来自怀疑主义者、否定者及华尔街高管们的各种看法。是的，基于错误观念进行辩解及全方位审视Facebook IPO非常重要，但末日论风潮掩盖这样的事实：Facebook依旧持有许多王牌。

财务分析师、媒体及风投资本家争相在Facebook这艘船上挖洞，他们似乎很希望它沉入海底。为反驳各杞人忧天者及悲观主义者的观点，本文将分析为何Facebook有望继续发展成全球最强大的公司之一。

predicting ball from venturebeat.com

移动平台：未知性

科技博客GigaOm的一则头条新新闻这样写道：“Facebook并不讳言公司尚未掌握移动平台的运作方式。”真正的问题在于，没有人知道移动领域的具体运作方式！关于移动平台的投资，Facebook采取谨慎策略，目前刚开始涉猎这一领域。时机非常完美——该公司将此把握得恰到好处，因为Facebook最有可能提供首个基于浏览器的移动开发平台。事实上，Facebook也刚宣布这一消息，这一平台被称作App Center。

App Center让你能够在Facebook的移动网站上安装应用。从用户视角来看，这点非常重要，因为这意味着应用会保持更新。我越发讨厌Apple Store图标上的小小红色数字，它总是提醒我，我有79个应用需要更新。由于如果没有网络，我就无法体验自己最喜爱的游戏Zynga《德州扑克》，因此我不需要将应用安装在我的平板电脑或手机上。从开发者视角来看，这节约时间和金钱。开发者无需专门研究各移动操作系统的本地语言，开发网页游戏的开发者可以基于移动平台设计应用。App Center还解决开发者面临的主要挑战，例如需要维持资产结构以支持伴随庞大安装用户基础的向后兼容性。我们的银行——美国银行已放弃其iOS应用，转而支持适合移动设备的网站，我更偏好这样的网站，因为它提供更多功能，会定期进行更新。

虽然这是个发展趋势，但并不意味着所有原生移动应用都将消失。还记得投资者刚开始投资桌面浏览器时吗？它带来之前在桌面电脑缺乏可行性的全新体验。浏览器并没有彻底扼杀桌面应用。用户依然会安装需要消耗大量资源的应用（游戏邦注：例如办公软件和设计工具等），但有些体验更适合通过浏览器，例如亚马逊、谷歌和Facebook。若Facebook的新移动平台能够创造类似于Zynga在其桌面平台的成功范例，那么这将能够极大提高他们的收益。

Facebook投资Instagram和Glancee进一步说明，他们想要在移动平台中胜出。包括他们刚刚发布的动态消息广告，这将出现在移动平台中。若Facebook能够在移动用户身上取得类似的创收水平，那么其收益将获得显著提高。

广告：尚未完全挖掘

关于Facebook所谓“广告问题”的头条新闻不胜枚举，称其CTR非常低，认为这一社交网络巨头不知道如何提高其9亿用户的创收水平。我希望同大家分享自己在接触用户过程中看到的具体情况，但我不能这么做。关于怀疑主义者，是否有思考这样的问题：Facebook是否拥有足够机会提高各用户的创收水平？Facebook才刚开始将广告放入动态消息中，其中有众多有待挖掘的空间。例如，Facebook表示，它先从此着手：每天在动态消息中向每位用户发送1条广告信息。若他们向自己的5亿位日活跃用户呈现广告，每年就会有1825亿次的广告浏览量。若人均用户创收水平是0.02美分（20美元CPM），Facebook就能够通过添加单个广告新单位获得36亿美元的收益（游戏邦注：Facebook去年创收37亿美元）。难道此创收水平还不够高吗？如果Facebook每回都向每位用户发送一则广告会出现什么情况？（要知道这种广告投放方式还不算太干扰用户）这将给Facebook带来数十亿美元的额外收益。

但要注意的是，这还是以Facebook广告仅针对Facebook资产为前提的情况。Facebook甚至未曾考虑过将广告业务拓展至Facebook.com以外的领域，但这不久将发生改变，因为扎克伯格及其团队挖走了谷歌AdSense（主要在非谷歌旗下的网站投放谷歌动态广告）的产品经理。我预测未来广告将渗透到Facebook之外的领域。尤其是Facebook刚刚更新自己的隐私权政策，旨在于Facebook之外的领域呈现广告信息。同样，这也能够带来丰厚收益。

虚拟货币：有待挖掘的财富

在14年的运营中，谷歌绝大多数收益都是由广告创造的。目前，Facebook有15%的收益来自其虚拟货币机制。若Facebook继续将自己的货币机制延伸至真实商品和服务中，其未来的收入将发生改变。

品牌预算：热门程度的较量

Facebook凭借9亿用户证明自己确实算是网络校园的风云人物。就和高中和大学一样，这是个人气水平的较量，因为品牌必须出没在用户所在的区域。随着社交广告行为的日益成熟化，逐步由用户获取转变成用户创收，社交广告的投资将越来越多，因为越来越多品牌营销者将清楚这一机制的运作模式。随着品牌逐步锁定自己的目标用户，Facebook将能够基于更少数量的印象获得更高的点击量，这能够提高同等广告数量的创收水平。我们通过用户判别完善运作的最佳举措。例如，我们发现瞄准目标用户能够将平均点击率提高7倍，这能够将成本从高于1美元/点击降至25美分/点击左右。

事实证明Facebook非常强大。相比谷歌广告平台，它在同比运营年限内的年收益远高过谷歌。我们没有理由觉得Facebook会无法解决其当前所遇到的问题我相信Facebook处于有利位置，将在IPO后继续给股票所有者带来丰厚收益。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Hey, doomsayers, Facebook will do much better than you think

By Justin Kistner

With Facebook’s highly anticipated IPO just a couple of days away, the press has been covering all kinds of depressing opinions from skeptics, naysayers, and suit-wearing Wall Street executives. Yes, it’s important to play devil’s advocate and look at the Facebook IPO from all sides, but don’t let the tidal wave of doom-saying drown out the obvious: Facebook has a lot of trump cards left to play.

Financial analysts, the media, and venture capital investors are poking holes in the Facebook ship and it seems as if they’re almost hoping it will sink. To combat all the worrywarts and pessimists out there, here’s an analysis of why Facebook will live to become one of the most powerful companies in the world.

Mobile: The Unknown

A headline from GigaOm, a well-respected tech site I’m a fan of, read, “Facebook Admits It Doesn’t Know How Mobile Works.” The real problem is that nobody knows how mobile works! Facebook has taken a cautious approach when it comes to mobile investments and is just now getting into the game. And the timing is perfect – its approach has set it up nicely because Facebook is the best positioned to offer the first browser-level mobile development platform. In fact, Facebook just announced it. It’s called the App Center.

The App Center lets you install apps on Facebook’s mobile site. From the user’s perspective, this is important because it means apps are always up to date. I have grown to hate the little red number on the Apple Store icon constantly reminding me that I have 79 apps that need updates. And since I can’t play my favorite game, Zynga Texas Hold ‘em, without the internet, I don’t need the app installed on my tablet or phone. From a developers perspective, it saves time and money. Instead of needing to specialize in the native language of each mobile OS, the same developers that build web-based games can build apps for mobile. The App Center also addresses key challenges for developers, such as having to maintain legacy architecture to support backwards compatibility that comes with a large installed user base. My bank, US Bank, already eliminated its iOS app in favor of a mobile friendly site, which I like much better because it provides more features and is updated regularly.

While this is a growing trend, it doesn’t mean that all native mobile apps will go away. Remember back when the desktop browser was invented? It gave birth to a whole new set of experiences that didn’t make sense to be installed on the desktop computer. The browser didn’t kill desktop apps completely. People still want to install resource hungry apps like office software, design tools, and more, but there are some experiences that are better through the browser like Amazon, Google, and Facebook. If Facebook’s new mobile platform can create success stories equivalent to Zynga on its desktop platform, it could increase their revenue substantially.

Facebook’s investment in Instagram and Glancee further demonstrates its dedication to winning in mobile. As does its newly released news feed ads that will flow into mobile. If Facebook can achieve similar monetization value for mobile users, then that will add massively to its revenue.

Ads: The Not Yet Unleashed

The headlines about Facebook’s so-called “advertising problem” are endless, talking about how CTRs (click-through rates) are low and that the social networking giant can’t seem to figure out how to increase the monetization of its 900 million users. I wish I could tell everyone all of the front-line details I’m seeing working with our customers, but I can’t. For the skeptics, are you asking the right question: Does Facebook have ample opportunity to improve its monetization of every user? Facebook is just starting to put ads into the news feed, and there is a wealth of untapped potential there. For example, Facebook said it would start by serving no more than one ad per person per day into the news feed. If it sells its inventory of 500M daily active users, that’s 182.5 billion ad views per year. At just $.02 per person ($20 CPM), Facebook could rack up $3.6 billion in revenue by adding a single new ad unit – and for context, Facebook did $3.7 billion in total revenue last year. Not enough money for you skeptics? What if Facebook releases one ad per person per session – which is still very non-invasive? That would add billions more in revenue to the Facebook bank account.

But, that’s just if Facebook ads stay on the Facebook property. Facebook hasn’t even tried to extend its advertising outside of the Facebook.com domain, but this is likely to change in the near future, because Zuckerberg and his team scooped up the product manager for Google’s AdSense program, which delivers Google powered ads on sites outside of Google’s own properties. I’m looking into my crystal ball and seeing that ads will go beyond the Facebook domain. Especially since Facebook just updated its privacy policy in a way that sets it up to serve ads outside of Facebook. Again, this could generate billions.

Credits: The Hidden Gem

In its entire 14 years of business, Google has never generated more than a single digit percentage of revenue from anything other than advertising. Right now, 15 percent of Facebook’s revenue comes from credits. If Facebook extends its credit system to real goods and services, its projections of future revenue would change.

The Brand Budget: It is a Popularity Contest

With 900 million users, Facebook has proven it’s the big man on the internet campus. Just like in high school and college, this is a popularity contest, because brands must be where consumers are. As the social ad practice matures past fan acquisition to fan monetization, we’re going to see social ad investment increase, because more and more brand marketers will understand the system. As brands improve targeting, Facebook can sell more clicks on fewer impressions, which allows it to increase revenue on the same inventory. We are working with our customers to identify the best practices to improve performance. For example, we learned that targeting increases the average click through rate by seven times, which can drive cost down from more than a dollar per click to as low as less than a quarter per click.

Facebook has proven to be pretty powerful. It has generated more revenue every year than Google did at the equivalent age of its ad platform. There’s no reason to assume Facebook won’t solve the issues at hand, especially with an influx of an anticipated $10 billion in cash. I believe Facebook is well positioned and will continue to make people millionaires long after the IPO.（Source：venturebeat）