I previously wrote a blog about the Facebook credits and the likelihood of it becoming a serious currency. It is unclear how much money is locked into this currency and how this will grow. It is also interesting to speculate how it will evolve to become an important component of the Facebook business case. The potential size of revenue does not seem to be that big and will not substantially increase the $ 2 Billion revenue that Facebook is making (predominantly) out of advertising.
What is interesting, though, is other aspects to consider. Finextra reported recently (Read here), that Facebook silently tweaked some of the rules to ensure that they do not breach US anti-trust laws. (They needed to ensure that they do not use their dominant position to arrange an unfair advantage to themselves.) Other considerations that will be important in future are consumer protection considerations and ensuring that the scheme is not contravening deposit-taking laws.
Also, the economics of funding the credits are interesting. When buying credits, one can use the usual payment options (credit cards, paypal etc.). But facebook as also teamed up with Zong and Boku and it is possible to also buy credits with these solution providers. This means that credits can be bought with airtime. If Facebook credits take-off and the scale become much bigger than now, this could have interesting implications for the revenue models for mobile operators.
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