Monetizing Social Media is not easy

I read an interesting Wall Street Journal article that compared Facebook to Geocities which had gotten sold for $4.7 billion to Yahoo in 2000. The article provides a sobering lesson to Mark Zuckerberg and the rest of the Facebook crew. For one thing, they're not truly the first in this space and nor are they immune from disaster either. Reading the article, I was struck by this quote -

"It's not that easy to monetize social media," says Eric Hippeau, a managing partner of Softbank Capital that made more than 20 times its investment in GeoCities. He also sits on Yahoo's board. "Once Microsoft's deal with Facebook expires, as does Google's deal with MySpace, they're going to have to sell advertising for themselves and it's going to be a challenge." So far, he says, "it's not that easy to match the right advertising with the right audience."

Yes, its certainly not that easy to monetize social media. And the reason is simple, the media simply isn't yours. Anyone who gets too greedy when housing someone else's media should beware. They make take it with them elsewhere. I'll be watching Facebook to see how it handles my media.