A company that lives on content grapples with storing it all
TechCrunch is watching Facebook struggle with success. Their astounding growth in unique visits and page views – up to 35 billion now – is creating a corresponding storage surge that’s sapping their cash. It’s not just new hardware either. Their electric bill is estimated at $1 million a month.
The big question is whether they can find an equation where the storage cost per new user is less than the revenue from that user.
Being the biggest isn’t always the best. Google makes it work. Facebook has to find their own formula to make their size and growth profitable. And quickly.
Other takeaways:
- NetApp is Facebook’s storage provider.
- User-created translated versions of the site are accelerating global growth.
- Jeremaiah Owyang led me to this story through FriendFeed. It’s a great tool! Give it a try if you haven’t.
I agree with you. Facebook is very much a victim of their own runaway success. If they don’t find a way to better monotize their business they risk having to shift to a subscription model or worse still, risk being bought up by a larger company that might alter its direction or focus.
Personally, I think micro-transactions are the way to do it. Bling, games, unique features a la carte. Here’s an example: if ringtones are an over 4 billion a year industry, surely they can come up with something that will appeal to their customers.