Facebook at its core is building the world's most powerful ad targeting technology that currently only powers Facebook, their first social network. I would expect a lot more acquisitions from Facebook in the next 1-2 years as they start building a portfolio of social properties.
We've seen a glimpse of their strategy, and it's not to create one social network, but to create a suite of social properties and provide the best monetization platform in the world.
Their strategy is something like this:
1) Power identity across all apps, in order to gain as much targeting data as possible.
--- Done. Facebook Login is now integrated in 80 of the top 100 grossing apps on iTunes and with the acquisition of Parse, they are geared to own even more developer mindshare.
2) Build first in class ad tech to utilize that interest data and monetize their social properties (Facebook, Instagram, [ add other random social network they acquire ])
-- In progress.
3) Help their partners monetize through a mobile ad network using the same ad tech they use on Facebook owned apps
-- This will be v1 when Instagram launches monetization this quarter. I believe Instagram will be the first 'publisher' on the Facebook ad network.
-- Facebook has already announced testing of their mobile ad network, though they stopped the tests, I believe it's been deprioritized until they actually get supply restrained.
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