Facebook went public with a valuation of about $100 billion and quickly lost about a third of that value to about $70 billion.  That is still a lot of money and it values each user at about $100.  The question now for Facebook is how do they get a revenue stream that justifies that $100/customer valuation or more?

Coaxing value from friends

Here is my Facebook value idea.  First buy or build a search engine like Google.  Then make one major improvement.  Build into the search algorithm a feature that uses the searches of the users friends and friends of friends to give much better targeted results.

Facebook is uniquely positioned to provide this service because of it’s size.  If the average person has 200 “friends” that means that at the second level there are 40,000 people who are more similar to the user than the common Google searcher.

while providing entertainment

And Facebook has an opening right now to fill this niche.  Both because of their critical mass which no one else has and because it appears to users that Google searches are being dominated by commercial enterprises.

The revenue will come from advertising on the search pages and developing a unique home page that has a customizable combination of search, friends, news, pet photos, clever sayings and other features.

Here is an example:  Last night we heard a speaker talk about “Mofuz” but didn’t know how to spell it.  A search through Google was at first useless.  Using the “friend tuned” Facebook Search Engine could have fixed the spelling error and found that Mofaz is the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel.

A few month ago I had a billion dollar idea for Starbucks.  Now I have a ten billion dollar idea for Facebook.  The Ideapreneur is on a roll.

Buy Facebook.  If they implement this idea it is a bargain.