Mark Zuckerberg made 3.8 Billion today. What did you do?

[edjr 5,564]

In just 24 hours Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune swelled by $3.8 billion.

It happened between 4:05 pm Eastern Time Wednesday, when the Internet giant reported second quarter earnings that dwarfed expectations, and the close of trading the following day.

 

Facebook (FB) shares soared 30% to their highest level since May 2012, earning the company’s founder and CEO the equivalent of $15.83 million per hour.

 

“A really amazing ride,” is how Matt Miller, editor of Bloomberg Billionaires, describes Zuckerberg’s exploding wealth. “He was one of the richest people in tech right before Facebook’s IPO,” Miller tells The Daily Ticker. “Then Facebook basically tanked for a year… Now he’s richer than Steve Ballmer, the CEO of Microsoft (MSFT).”

 

The 29-year-old Zuckerberg is now number 42 on Bloomberg Billionaire’s list, with a net worth of $16.8 billion. He was number 75 before the latest Facebook earnings were released and so far this year his net worth has swelled by 37%.

 

Gates and Zuckerberg are amongst several tech leaders on the billionaires list which includes Larry Ellison ( ORCL), Jeff Bezos (AMZN) and Sergey Brin (GOOG).

Zuckerberg is richer than Nike co-founder Phil Knight, Rupert Murdoch, Brooklyn Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov and Laurene Jobs, the widow of Steve Jobs. Jobs, of course, was one of the people Zuckerberg admired most.

 

“A lot of the old school tech guys will remain in the top 20, 50, 100 of the world’s richest,” says Miller. Watch the video above for more on Zuckerberg's big day and his fellow billionaires.

 

[Electric Mayhem 35]

Imma go take a dookie, does that count?

[TimmySmith 2,782]

You ever wonder if FB users realize exactly why Zuckerberg has gotten so wealthy off of them when he charges them nothing?

[king george 0]

i wondered to myself why so many clowns use facebook.

[bob_probert_2000 1]

Well I am going to go jerk off to this thread. That's something right?

[TD Ryan2 314]

You ever wonder if FB users realize exactly why Zuckerberg has gotten so wealthy off of them when he charges them nothing?

 

revenue comes in three forms:

 

1. cash (the simplest form)

2. Attention (you gain attention and then convert it to cash thru advertising)

3. trust (you gain trust and then convert it to cash with referrals or advice)

 

Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Blogs... all the content is free... if you can gain enough attention, you leverage that attention into cash from advertising dollars.

 

Facebook isn't making money "off" it's users... it's making money from advertisers who can profile the users and target them with with user-specific ads.

[parrot 789]

I worked on my earwax models of all the Game of Thrones characters. The Mountain is taking a while.

[parrot 789]

 

revenue comes in three forms:

 

1. cash (the simplest form)

2. Attention (you gain attention and then convert it to cash thru advertising)

3. trust (you gain trust and then convert it to cash with referrals or advice)

 

Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Blogs... all the content is free... if you can gain enough attention, you leverage that attention into cash from advertising dollars.

 

Facebook isn't making money "off" it's users... it's making money from advertisers who can profile the users and target them with with user-specific ads.

 

Yeah, it's quite a mystery how you could make money off a website that only has a billion users.

[TD Ryan2 314]

 

Yeah, it's quite a mystery how you could make money off a website that only has a billion users.

 

connectivity is the key and the monopoly you get from being the connection point.

 

We start with early software like:

MS Office - sure, an inventive product. But the fact the they got everyone to use it is the magic... everyone is locked into it now so even if you have a better and/or cheaper word processor or spreadsheet or email software, you can't penetrate their monopoly.

 

And we move even further towards:

Google search - where google is a connection Hub connecting surfers (i.e. customers) with websites (i.e. sellers). Google is pushing even harder to connect everyone with Google+ and Youtube... make youself the center of connection and you win.

 

And then we see Facebook:

There may be other social media interfaces that are better. There will be upstart movements that try to challenge it. But in the end, they've gotten so many people on-board that it's nearly impossible to derail them. Their USERS made it this way because they are so invested and entrenched in it.

 

And we keep seeing it with CRM, Project Management software and now even Apps like Instagram that can only be more than a "flash in the pan" if they have some way to connect socially and get the masses to collectively buy in... once one sales guy or one team member or one family member or friend is using it, you all have to.

So you give it away Free... the lost leader... sure it's your widget, your "product" but it isn't the endgame as it once was... the endgame is connecting everyone who uses it and profiting off of the "connection monopoly" it gives you and converting that attention (or trust) into cash.

 

Going forward, this is the secret of success. Not to make a "widget" better/cheaper than a competitor but rather how to connect people in the realm(s) that your widget belongs.