Interesting point made on email today through Edelman's Me2 Revolution list.
Steve Rubel (for it was he) drew our attention to the US social network for health professionals, Sermo, which has just signed a deal with the pharmaceutical firm Pfizer.
In case you weren't aware(!), Sermo is "the largest U.S. networking site for doctors. It launched in September 2006, counts 30,000 physicians as members, and is adding 2,000 a week."
Although it's not clear exactly what Pfizer's involvement with the network will be it's possible that the drug company will be able to tap into and benefit from the novel income stream that Sermo already offers. According to Daily Brief:
"Instead of selling ads, Sermo makes its money by letting service companies, financial services firms, and the government become flies on the wall of the biggest physicians' roundtable out there. It packages and sells the data it holds on the medical community, allowing those parties to get insight into how to better serve them, and to anticipate what's on the horizon."
Now it's highly possible that someone has already written about the parallels between Sermo's revenue model and the potential for Facebook to go the same way - but I haven't read it yet.
Packaging and flogging user data aside, what's stopping Facebook from selling focus-group sessions with its member-base to corporates? Isn't it only one, logical step away from the daily poll you get in the side-bar.
It's also an interesting model. No-one wants advertising anymore (and you can block it anyway) and those sponsored links in the news feed are laughable. If it came down to unannounced listening or unobtrusive focus group invitations, I think that might not be a too unpleasent way for Facebook to make some cash and stay useful.
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