As an avid Facebook user, I had not stopped once to question how Facebook made a profit.  This thought had never crossed my mind until I read the article, “Zuckerberg’s rocket, ready for lift-off; Valuing Facebook”, assigned to us for class.  Before this I had barely even noticed, in the same way as billions of other social-networkers hadn’t noticed, the advertisements on the right side of every Facebook page (Figure 1).  Clearly, this advertising campaign isn’t working.

The future for Facebook is to become more than a simple social-networking website:  it will become an online shopping site.  In my opinion, this is one of the least creative and most desperate attempts for Facebook to increase the value of its stocks.  Facebook is joining forces with retailers world-wide such as Victoria’s Secret and Pottery Barn to test out the websites new features.  They will be introducing a “want” and a “collect” button in addition to their already existing “like” button.  This concept was

already attempted by Pinterest and was, by no means, a success.  It is disappointing to see Mark Zuckerberg sinking as low as copying another website’s ideas to increase his profits; I think we all expected something a little more ingenious out of him.

• Luks, Joe. “Facebook testing new features, muscling in on Pinterest: Inside the Want game.” culturemap Houston. N.p., 13 Oct. 2012. Web. 14 Oct. 2012. <http://houston.culturemap.com/newsdetail/10-13-12-facebook-testing-new-features-muscling-in-on-pinterest-inside-the-want-game/>.
• Mitchell, Dan. “A single button could solve Facebook’s revenue problem.” CNN Money. N.p., 11 Oct. 2012. Web. 14 Oct. 2012. <http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/10/11/facebook-12/>.
• The Economist. ProQuest, 12 May 2012. Web. 14 Oct. 2012. <http://search.proquest.com/docview/1013524060?accountid=14656>.
• Tam, Donna. “Facebook not big on big ads.” CNET. N.p., 29 May 2012. Web. 14 Oct. 2012. <http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-57443035-93/facebook-not-big-on-big-ads/>.
• http://www.colbybrownphotography.com/blog/