Facebook Credits?

It seems that Facebook wants to make a bigger profit off of its highly successful social networking site. Ari Levy, Brian Womack, and Joseph Galante have written an article at Bloomberg.com revealing this interesting story. Facebook already recieves huge profits from advertising on the site itself. However, the owners of Facebook are now looking to reach into new areas to make a profit. Namely, they desire to cut into the profit of the many popular games presented on their site. These games can be put on Facebook for free, and some games have options for players to purchase items in-game to help them. Facebook is now looking into taking up to 30% of the profits of such items through the new Facebook Credits system. This move is made presumably after the success of Iphone apps, where Apple also takes a 30% profit off apps.

Players would be able to buy Facebook Credits directly or through systems such as PayPal. The article also comments that in-game purchases will rise due to Facebook's "trust factor." Basically, more people are likely to purchase items through Facebook, because it seems more trustworthy that third party companies that produce the games. Facebook has also mentioned that the Facebook Credits may extend to other appliations besides just games. Many third-party game producers seem to accept this idea as long as Facebook Credits is not the only payment option for in-game items. Many producers actually welcome Facebook Credits, because they believe that this system will convince more people to buy in-game items.

This is an interesting and eventful choice for Facebook. To date, Facebook makes it's profits primarily through Ad revenues. However, Facebook Credits will drasticly change this. However, some Facebook users might feel threatened by Facebook Credits, predicting that the site might start asking people to pay for use of the entire sites. Such fears are unfounded, and the majority of Facebook users will be affected.

With a Sunshine of Rainbow Fire,
Blogdor the Dragon