Doubts about Facebook’s future had been blamed in large part on their lack of mobile revenues. Facebook fixed that in just three months. Pretty impressive. Facebook stock was up 23% after reports on their 3rd quarter showed that mobile was 14% of their ad revenues. Those mobile revenues were 15 times higher than Q2. My comments on Bloomberg TV were a response to naysayers about Facebook’s IPO.
I also commented, though it’s not in the video, that many people now view Facebook as a necessary place to check several times per day, just so they can keep up with their friends’ latest real world moves.
Also, I speculated that Facebook may have Google’s search dominance in their sights. I believe that Wall Street pressure, their partnership with Bing, and their ability to change the user interface whenever they want will make this an obvious strategic possibility for them. I don’t believe the average Google user can really see a different in search result quality (in other words, Google’s competitive advantage is really more a brand assumption than something people can verify once they question it). Yes, it may take time, but Facebook could slowly integrate web search results (naturally favoring sites that use Facebook like buttons and other social plugins) into their normal user experience, acclimating people to the idea that Facebook is really about people’s social experience across the entire web. Whether they go this route, and how fast, may be moderated by how much they monetize the rest of the web through FB Exchange. Currently, they prefer to keep people on Facebook.
The upshot for marketers? Test mobile ads and make sure your website uses Facebook social plugins.