Question for Matt Cutts on Directories

I think you are all missing a huge player here - Pinterest. Think about it. You've got millions of people labeling images and pages and categorizing them. It's a natural directory. While there are far fewer sites in the "index" the search results are far more accurate and there's far less keyword-stuffed gibberish. A bit of hero worship perhaps (major magazines and popular sites have an edge over the rest of us) but, for the most part the results are on point.

I see more and more folks, at least in some of my niches, are using Pinterest for search. Sure it has some pay to promote stuff going on but nowhere near what FB has.

FB has been compromised and I don't think they can really recover. People are making small fortunes selling "friends" and "likes."

Of course, my personal theory is that Pinterest is either quietly backed by a major player or will, in the not too distant future, be sold to one. It surely has become a gold mine of data for someone.

 

Its an AGE thing.. I think you both made some interesting points, both of which point directly to the demographics. Teenagers are not the ones buying things. They are also not the ones that are glued to a social media stream 24/7. 30 something and up are. And they buy stuff. Popularity has little to do with facebook's success. Its more about the "connection" and ability to offer those who are unable to "connect" to do so as life gets in the way of freedom. Teenagers have all the time in the world for everything and are able to interact with friends, family and others in person. As you grow older the time and distance weakens those types of personal interactions. That social media outlet allows old friends, family and new friends to connect and do so in between feeding the kids, working, napping, cleaning or whatever else life throws at you.

In the end, those people are the ones that have money to spend and use what little time they have to not only connect, but find things on line!

 

Ad conversions through everyday mediums fail. People get “blinders” and do not see the ads after a while. News mediums have never kept profits going from that model I don't see how FB can. If they could they would be all over anything trying to show profit.
The games have show to be a fad and cannot hold steady earnings.

FB has peaked. They are shuffling money around trying to show any kind of profit from anywhere to keep the stocks inflated. One quarter they will hype up games, the next ads, next ? = Desperate carnival act to entertain investors.

FB is a multi billion dollar investment scheme. It has no sustainable profit model, just tons of money invested. Look out below.

 

I think we are talking about two different things here. SEARCH and ADVERTISEMENTS. I am not suggesting that the ads are being actively sought out or clicked on, I am talking about integrating Search into the functionality within the social media spectrum in one all encompassing portal experience. I see FB becoming what AOL is in terms of its own little INTRANET, news, entertainment, videos, search, talk, chat, messaging, and of course social media. Whether that is the direction they are planning to take it is anyone's guess.

 

I think the direction they take will depend on profits. They are publicly traded so it all has to do with earnings (or what they can make look like earnings).

I don't see them doing search because it would not be profitable to compete with google in this time. But I do agree with them trying to becoming their own little intranet and trying to keep users onsite. That seems like what most internet giants strive for. I do think they are losing it though, now days people are checking FB less and less.

 

Looks like the old links from those directories becoming spammy don't hurt that much. My impression is twofold:
there are signs that google pays less attention to really old links in their ranking.
there are also some indications (or some blogger's and "experts" imaginations) that old links, no matter where they come from give domain (not it's pages) some historic "authority" in the eyes of Search engines. -- I'm not sure if that's true, though it might be