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Facebook tests $1 fee for messages to non-friends

by thebitbotdotcom
26 replies
That's one way to boost income.

Recently, I started charging a dollar for account activation. I think Mark Z is reading my posts. LOL.

Facebook tests $1 fee for messages to non-friends
#facebook #fee #messages #nonfriends #tests
  • Profile picture of the author ltrain_riders
    Facebook is really stretching for additional ways to make money.
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  • Profile picture of the author Chr
    I actually think its a clever idea to try out. If someones willing to pay a dollar, there may easily be a legitimate reason to contact the person. Also, they're only testing it, not necessarily implementing it.
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  • Profile picture of the author shane_k
    So what it actually looks like is the $1 is to make sure your message ends up in a person's inbox, and not in a folder called "other"

    I always assumed that if you sent someone a message it would end up in their inbox.

    I didn't even know that there was a folder called "other"

    I just looked at mine and there are a bunch of messages from people who are my friends who I don't talk to much on facebook itself.

    there are messages that are from some groups that I have joined.

    there are even 3 alerts or messages from facebook itself about it's privacy changes, lol.

    I guess facebook is telling me they aren't that important.

    Ok, looking some more and I fiind about 6 messages from women wanting to be friends and all are the same emails about how they just moved into town, like my profile and want my email address to send me pics of themselves, haha
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  • Profile picture of the author Confined To Life
    This was posted just a second ago...
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  • Profile picture of the author drr
    I would hope users would be able to elect to opt out of receiving the spam.
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    • Profile picture of the author Howard88
      I tested the $7 post thing they came out with a little while ago. I have around 1100 fb friends I've gathered over the years. It was just a post about my friend whose band was on tour and they were playing in town that night.

      What I noticed was that I got a lot of comments and likes from people that I hadn't talked to in a while. Made me realize how tight people's newsfeeds are. That's when I started making lists so I wouldn't be at the mercy of the main facebook newsfeed.

      Creating lists of friends, or even grouping fanpages into subjects you are interested in, is a great way as an fb user to get the most out of the site.

      Honestly I think an fb-like site could be easily user-supported... much like wikipedia does with their "hey, you're gonna lose this site if you don't help us reach our goals" campaigns.

      For now at least, I hope the fb dudes keep testing ways to make a little money, without being invasive to users.
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  • Profile picture of the author ProServices
    It's in the testing stages. I can't imagine them rolling this out permanently.
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  • Profile picture of the author ltrain_riders
    This sounds more like extortion. If you want your message to go to the person's inbox, then pay us $1.

    Whether they are testing this or not, it's still a stretch. They need to do something to add value to their company now they have stock holders to please. I just don't think this will work out too well. I'm sure there will be a few marketers who can make this work sending an email to people to get them to buy something but they will be few and far between. It won't be long before we see "Make money sending FaceBook emails" ebooks using this new $1 system.
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    • Profile picture of the author thebitbotdotcom
      Originally Posted by ltrain_riders View Post

      This sounds more like extortion. If you want your message to go to the person's inbox, then pay us $1.

      Whether they are testing this or not, it's still a stretch. They need to do something to add value to their company now they have stock holders to please. I just don't think this will work out too well. I'm sure there will be a few marketers who can make this work sending an email to people to get them to buy something but they will be few and far between. It won't be long before we see "Make money sending FaceBook emails" ebooks using this new $1 system.
      Interesting way to look at it.

      I guess they could argue that they have so many emails to process that they have to add a "surcharge" to cover the extra expense. Companies do this all of the time.

      There's always a loophole.

      Your last point almost sounded like some type of Adwords format.
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      • Profile picture of the author ltrain_riders
        Originally Posted by thebitbotdotcom View Post

        Interesting way to look at it.

        I guess they could argue that they have so many emails to process that they have to add a "surcharge" to cover the extra expense. Companies do this all of the time.

        There's always a loophole.

        Your last point almost sounded like some type of Adwords format.
        What companies charge you to send emails, besides the AutoResponders? Imagine if Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, or Gmail charged you to send to people not in your address book...
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        • Profile picture of the author thebitbotdotcom
          Originally Posted by ltrain_riders View Post

          What companies charge you to send emails, besides the AutoResponders? Imagine if Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, or Gmail charged you to send to people not in your address book...
          Oh, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the charging of a dollar is legit, I'm simply saying that they may use something like that as an excuse.

          But also keep in mind that the free services you mentioned are monetized with advertising.
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          • Profile picture of the author ltrain_riders
            Originally Posted by thebitbotdotcom View Post

            Oh, don't get me wrong, I am not saying that the charging of a dollar is legit, I'm simply saying that they may use something like that as an excuse.

            But also keep in mind that the free services you mentioned are monetized with advertising.
            I agree. You can't blame FB for trying. If it works, great for them. Even if .01% of 700million FB users use this once per day, that's still $70,000 a day.

            I should also point out that I am anti-FaceBook and I believe their days are numbered so I may be a little biased against them.
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  • Profile picture of the author ocaswiz
    I think with little more photoshop work, your site will look a lot better. If you can talk fluently, why not make a video LP?
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  • Profile picture of the author Green Moon
    Nothing is really free. Many internet companies have closed their doors over the years because they have not figured out how to monetize their "free" services. Employees don't work for free, massive server capacity doesn't come cheap and investors won't continue to dump money into a company with no plan to earn a profit.

    Companies like Facebook need to continually look for ways to generate revenue without adversely affecting their core business. It's like airlines with the many extra fees they impose. I can fly today from Chicago to Boston for about the same price I could in 1980 if I book well in advance of the trip and buy a non-refundable ticket. But if I want to buy a ticket at the last minute, it costs a lot more. If I want to check a large suitcase, there is a fee. If I want more legroom, there is a fee. If I want a meal, there is a fee. Casual flyers may complain, but none of those things were ever really "free," they were just built in to the cost of the ticket.

    Marketers themselves talk about developing multiple revenue streams. "Don't rely just on AdSense." "Don't rely only on organic search from Google for your traffic." In the same vein, Facebook cannot rely only on revenues from those little advertisements. They have to be prepared to augment their revenues.
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    • Profile picture of the author thebitbotdotcom
      Originally Posted by Green Moon View Post

      Nothing is really free. Many internet companies have closed their doors over the years because they have not figured out how to monetize their "free" services. Employees don't work for free, massive server capacity doesn't come cheap and investors won't continue to dump money into a company with no plan to earn a profit.

      Companies like Facebook need to continually look for ways to generate revenue without adversely affecting their core business. It's like airlines with the many extra fees they impose. I can fly today from Chicago to Boston for about the same price I could in 1980 if I book well in advance of the trip and buy a non-refundable ticket. But if I want to buy a ticket at the last minute, it costs a lot more. If I want to check a large suitcase, there is a fee. If I want more legroom, there is a fee. If I want a meal, there is a fee. Casual flyers may complain, but none of those things were ever really "free," they were just built in to the cost of the ticket.

      Marketers themselves talk about developing multiple revenue streams. "Don't rely just on AdSense." "Don't rely only on organic search from Google for your traffic." In the same vein, Facebook cannot rely only on revenues from those little advertisements. They have to be prepared to augment their revenues.
      Well stated. I have personally found that anytime I have run a free service, ultimately, it gets over-run and abused and I have to shut it down...happens every time...like clockwork.
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  • Profile picture of the author Martinsee
    When will this start ? Is it true.
    So we will have some additional services such as : Sell post facebook, sell status facebook ... etc
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  • Profile picture of the author SuperKristen
    Yap, I saw that today. Some of my subscriber message me regularly, I hope they won't like this.
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  • Profile picture of the author thetrafficguy2
    yeah, if it goes through there will be a lot of spam and will be shut down quickly
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  • Profile picture of the author karlmay1980
    I think it could be a good idea, sometimes you never know if someone has got your important message so this will make sure they do.

    Spammers are not likely to pay $1 to send 1 message they are looking to blast them all over the place and for as little cost as possible.
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  • Profile picture of the author AdscendTony
    Is that really going down? Seems like that could be huge for networking. And the $1 would keep most spammers out.
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    • Profile picture of the author thebitbotdotcom
      Originally Posted by AdscendTony View Post

      Is that really going down? Seems like that could be huge for networking. And the $1 would keep most spammers out.
      That was one of the thoughts that popped into my head.

      I just started charging $1 USD registration for the site in my sig.

      Not because I wanted to make money this way. Honestly, I wanted to keep registration free.

      The only problem was that spam signups were off the charts for the last few months, so I finally had to pull the trigger.

      I am glad I did.

      Things are much more manageable now. If I hadn't done this, I would have had to hire more help...which the site doesn't merit at this point.

      With respect to Facebook, this may very well be an anti-spam tactic...
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  • Profile picture of the author jaggyjay
    Testing stage or not, I wonder what the implications of this might be. A slippery slope... hmmmm
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  • Profile picture of the author cooler1
    Originally Posted by Chris Kent View Post

    Sounds pretty desperate to me. They're struggling to think of ways to make money when everyone goes to mobile platforms.
    But surely FB will be expanding to mobile platforms?
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    • Profile picture of the author stoneysidelane
      Interesting idea. I guess I can understand from FBs point of view as a business. Could raise revenues and appease some pissed off investors.

      If implemented, how do you think it will affect plugins like Social Funnel Machine that set up pages such that when people like them, it shows up on their timeline and news feed?
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