It's worth pointing out that all those discussions about what is the new currency or what not are only even remotely possible in the very advanced, almost-post-scarcity economies that we live in.

If the global economy collapses or a world war erupts, for example, hackers, bankers, public speakers, and other intellectuals like us, may find that the real currency becomes the ability to grow vegetables on a piece of land. Cue virtuoso pianists exchanging their £10k Steinberg concert grand piano for a sack of potatoes.

It won't need a global collapse for all but a tiny handful of startups that consider revenue irrelevant to run out of funding before turning a profit. "Relevance" is only a means to currency, whether it's coming from your user base or the perceived future value of your user base.

There are worse things than being an "irrelevant" behemoth that generates wads of cash and uses it to buy more innovative companies that don't too.

It's more likely in that scenario that Steinbergs and Stradivarii would be burnt for warmth.

Okay, you can have the relevancy while I take the revenue...

Thanks. :-)

I could help you forget revenue by taking all your money. That would free you up to focus on being relevant, which is what really matters. Deal?

I absolutely agree. There will be a bigger better thing than Facebook at some point. There is always something bigger and better. Facebook will represent a major plateau in social technology, no doubt about it. Facebook changed the social landscape of over 500 million people and counting.

Remember however that relevance is increasingly driven by the user's want of instant, here and now, access to information. Location sharing, augmented reality,RFID, Qr codes, and mobile social games are all very new and exciting. Add to that the ultracool mobile hardware out there from Androids to iPhones and the tee tablet market and I see unlimited possibilities here! It's exciting! There is so much possibility when you look at all of those variables, I can't believe that there wont be newer and shinier platform that catches us by storm! 5 years from today I'm sure we'll know the Facebook killers name...we may already know it.

The great thing about the Old Currency is that I can spend it to buy things I want: food, clothes, books.

Until the New Currency can do that, I think I'll stick with the Old Currency.

You obviously haven't read the post.

This sounds a lot like those "new economy" screeds in Wired back in the dotcom days.

Forget Gravity. Lift Is The New Currency.

Why should we forget fundamentals just because the models are constantly changing?

Just like an airplane can defy gravity for a while, so can a business without revenue. But sooner or later, both must return to earth.

Out of curiosity, did you actually read the article, or did you just comment on the title?

The article used facebook, which already has about $800m in revenue, as a starting point to discuss a major factor of success for social media. He had a good point.

edit/ In fact, his point could be applied very well to the recent Digg fiasco. If they had ranked "relevance to users" as high as "revenue maximization" then they may not have lost so many users.

Do you know how much of that $800 million is recurring income? They have >$100 million deals with both Google and Microsoft separately. From what I've heard their popularity with advertisers, their actual paying customer, is in the tank. They are also one of the costliest websites in the world to run.

Enough that they're telling people they're going to hit $2 Billion in revenue this year.

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/01/facebook-will-hit-2-billion...

I think I'll start paying my employees with "relevance checks" instead of real money...if they argue with me I'll just tell them "forget money! just be more relevant!"

I remember back in the 90s when they said "content is king".

Cash is king, always was, always will be. Otherwise it's not business.

If I had focused on 'relevance' or 'eyeballs' in stead of on 'turnover' and 'profits' I would have been out of business long ago.

Unless you are very well connected and have a clear exit route in sight please don't forget revenue.

And nobody says you can't have both relevance and revenue, it's not like they're opposites.

It is probably true for platform companies, but in the end cash still rules. With respect, I think Facebook and Tencent are the only few "egoless" big players trying to stay relevant in the paranoid way. They will not give any chance to any threat in their game by copying ideas from startups fast. They know their games.

Yeah, funny thing is that my bank won't let me pay my mortgage or credit card bills with "relevance".

Summary: "Companies such as Facebook should worry more about staying relevant than making a profit".

Customers=Currency So by proxy, anything that attracts the customer is currency. What attracts the customer is what us relevant to the user.

To me it sounds a bit like "the old rules don't apply."

i can't believe this post got buried.