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Unlike Linkedin which has been able to successfully charge for a premium service, Facebook does not realize any revenue beyond advertising on their various pages. This means that they are entirely beholden to the fate of the online advertising industry and it’s fate is not that rosy at the moment. I had always been suspicious of any business that relies entirely on advertising for its revenue. This is because unless you own the advertising engine (read Google) you are the lacky that delivers the click throughs. The network affect of an advertising engine like Google online is just too strong (just ask Microsoft).

In June Facebook valued itself at around $3.7Billion:

In a transcript of a June court hearing that was closed to the public, lawyers arguing over a legal settlement revealed Facebook’s own appraisal had priced its privately held stock at $8.88 per share, giving it a market value of about $3.7 billion.

Facebook is probably worth considerably less today because of the downturn in advertising rates and I would be surprised if it is worth $1B or so, however

There are some interesting challenges dealing with Nokia. Firstly Facebook is a North American social phenom, where as Nokia is a European centric supplier. It’s marketshare is no where in North America which is dominanted by RIM and Apple. If Nokia think that this will help them gain traction then they need to think again. My Blackberry has Facebook on it, but that was not even a thought in my mind over choice of smartphones. I am not clear that other than supporting facebook on Symbian, it makes a toss of difference.

However GigaOm adds:

Apparently, I am one of 25 million Facebook mobile users and one of 4 million who access the service on a daily basis. That’s a sizable portion of Facebook’s 150 million (and growing) registered users, and with them lies Facebook’s future. With the rise of superphones such as Apple’s iPhone, the BlackBerry Bold and Nokia’s E71 and N96 devices, we are at the cusp of a new era in which the mobile and the wired web converge. This convergence, when married to location-based services, would create a new real-time and highly contextual Internet experience.

The thing about Facebook is that it is about me, not about us. My world on Facebook is in the context as me as the hub responding to other’s hubs and where we intersect is where the social aspect executes. But first and for most the hub must have utility at the center of the hub, NOT in the social intersections. I think this is the flaw in Facebook’s thinking. This leads me to think that Facebook could be a seriously good Super rich Contact Management System that could replace the incredibly annoying synchronization process that I have to go through with the 5 or so Contact databases I have (I use Apple Sync somewhat but there are holes).

What if Facebook because the defacto device independent contact and group management system that could coordinate all my contact and calendering capability. It would be this organic system that could manage my contacts, organize groups, friends, family, work,  build social IM, micro blogging etc etc.

Wouldn’t that be nice. It would be something worth paying for… Facebook a fancy contact management system.