Does size matter? Facebook and friends, that is :)

In a matter of months, we will soon find out if the proud owners of Facebook shares are holding anything more than a worthless piece of paper.  I won't be surprised if FB begins to roll out fees for this and that in order to increase the revenue stream.

If the data on ourselves and our "friends" are what FB will have to monetize, then I suppose both the numbers of people and the quality of data will matter, which is where this Pew study's (ht) numbers become important:

If the user data is ultimately for advertisements that will translate to real sales, then mere numbers might not matter all that much if the disposable incomes of the youngest cohorts is insignificant.  It will, once again, come down to the size of the wallet, which in FB world is not the same as the most number of friends, right?

BTW, the same Pew report notes:

Of people who use social networking sites, 63% have deleted people from their "friends" lists, up from 56% in 2009; 44% have deleted comments made by others on their profile; and 37% have removed their names from photos that were tagged to identify them.

A majority of social network site users - 58% - restrict access to their profiles and women are significantly more likely to choose private settings.

For once, I am not in the minority then :)