Facebook is Going to Kill the Ad Sponsered Web?: Talk About Going from Hype to Despair

Now I think pundits are overcorrecting after hyping Facebook to high heaven.

Facebook is not only on course to go bust, but will take the rest of the ad-supported Web with it.

Given its vast cash reserves and the glacial pace of business reckonings, that will sound hyperbolic. But that doesn't mean it isn't true.

At the heart of the Internet business is one of the great business fallacies of our time: that the Web, with all its targeting abilities, can be a more efficient, and hence more profitable, advertising medium than traditional media. Facebook, with its 900 million users, valuation of around $100 billion, and the bulk of its business in traditional display advertising, is now at the heart of the heart of the fallacy.

I have to agree with this article when it says that the death of Facebook will deal a serious blow to banner ads since it will show Madison Avenue that even if you have 900 million or a billion users you still hardly get any of them to click on your ad. They will figure that shoveling money toward Facebook might be a waste like GM recently has.

However I don't think the ad-supported Web will die because of Facebook's potential demise. Also this argument that the Web is a more efficient and profitable advertising media is not a fallacy. Traditional ads have always been shoveling money at something for a non-measurable return. You put on a 30 second commercial and hopefully people buy your crap. If you put that commercial in front of a million people it is better than only 10,000 people. It isn't rocket science.

So advertisers follow the people. They think that Facebook has 500 million sets of active eyeballs so they have to get their ads in front of those people. It is pretty much like advertising on a billboard. People see it and think I need that product. The Web allows you a more efficient way to go from the "I need that product" to the "I'll buy that product" by clicking through the banner ad. The problem is that not enough people are doing that to make Facebook grow long term and have it trade at that high a multiple.

However, that doesn't kill the ad-sponsored Web by any stretch of the imagination. I mean billboards still provide a pretty decent stream of revenue and there is no way to measure how effective they are at selling the ad buyers crap. So banner ads will become the billboards of the Web and will be priced with a similar model. I mean if you want to get people to notice your product putting a billboard in front of 500 million people isn't the worst thing you can do.

This "banner ads as billboards" effect doesn't mean that suddenly all of the ad dollars will drain out of the Web. I mean where are they going to go instead? All of the traditional media has been tried and most of them have no way of measuring their effectiveness. Companies are still shoveling billions toward prime time TV even though time shifting is making it so that less and less people see those commercials.

I mean most traditional media sources are having problems with diminishing eyeballs as we speak. People watch less prime time TV, read less magazines and newspapers, and most people throw away direct mail without looking at it. So the Web is the last place where there are millions of eyeballs that you can put your crap in front of. The banner ad might not be the most effective way of selling your crap but it sure beats sending out a million flyers and hoping you get some business from them.