Carriers.

Probably the most interesting thing about the Facebook announcement today is that they got AT&T to do a deal with them. Carriers were robbed of $13.9 billion in SMS revenue in 2011 alone. Facebook plays no small part.

A friend who previously led a major division at Nokia said that carriers were, at one point, even refusing to preinstall apps like Facebook because they cannibalize SMS revenue too aggressively.

They’ve obviously garnered the deal because of both the relevancy play (AT&T looks ‘hip’ as they adopt this new technology) and the data usage revenue is likely to be non-trivial. I’m sure all of the high resolution cover images and ads will drain your data allowance. Carriers love selling apps pre installed that increase data usage especially when it allows them to sell their speed as a feature.

If Facebook’s ability to do a deal with a company they are destroying revenues for doesn’t increase their stock price, it’s hard to say what will. That is an incredible skill.