That is right. Norvig doesn't see what Facebook is good at and ask how it will make money. He turns the question on its head, looks to a successful business model and asks how Facebook could be used for it. And it is an uphill battle for Facebook to monetize in this fashion.
I think what we've seen so far is that Facebook is about creating social spaces, not solving problems, so it really can't be used that effectively as a recommendation engine. Facebook doesn't have a great way to seek rent on these social spaces because they've built their user base on free service. So where is the money going to come from? Probably selling user data to corporations.
I think what we've seen so far is that Facebook is about creating social spaces, not solving problems, so it really can't be used that effectively as a recommendation engine. Facebook doesn't have a great way to seek rent on these social spaces because they've built their user base on free service. So where is the money going to come from? Probably selling user data to corporations.