Is Facebook Worth the Hype?
This was Facebook Week here at Read/WriteWeb, but I couldn't help but notice how many other blogs wrote posts about Facebook this week as well. It seemed that almost every day there was a Facebook meme on Techmeme. Anecdotal evidence would seem to suggest that Facebook is the most hyped thing this year other than the iPhone. So I had this post about Facebook's hype all planned out in my head. I was prepared to explore whether Facebook was deserving of the attention, and I would remind everyone of Flickr, which between September 2006 and March 2007 had 60% more blog coverage than Photobucket, but whose traffic is dwarfed by Photobucket (which incidentally was sold News Corp. for about $200 million more than Yahoo! paid for Flickr). The point being that becoming a media darling doesn't necessarily mean that you're the top dog.
A quick search on digg, where 25 Facebook-related stories have hit the front page in the past month compared to 10 for MySpace, seemed to confirm my premise. But then a funny thing happened: other numbers started to indicate that anecdotal evidence might be wrong, and maybe Facebook wasn't actually as hyped as I thought. The graph below shows that blog mentions of Facebook vs. MySpace isn't even a contest: MySpace is being talked about nearly 5 times as much as Facebook most days over the past month. And Facebook hasn't really garnered the same mainstream attention as its chief social networking rival, either. According to Google News, over the past 30 days MySpace has been mentioned in about 15,000 news stories, compared to just over 6,000 for Facebook. Further, Google Trends says search volume for "myspace" absolutely crushes that of "facebook."
Of course, it's not just how much they're talking, but what they're saying. A number of prominent bloggers, business people, and analysts have been heaping praises on Facebook since they launched their platform strategy in May. Here's a taste:
"Facebook IS the internet portal of 2007." - Jeff Pulver
"Facebook could easily become the Microsoft Windows of tomorrow." - Duncan Riley
"No matter how you look at it Facebook is the one. Right now." - Robert Scoble
"Facebook will reach 50 million, then 100 million, then 200 million users, and beyond." - Paul Allen (who also compares Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to Alexander the Great)
"Last time an inward looking ecosystem caught the imagination of developers, it was Windows 95, the defining moment for Microsoft. The winner of that movement: Microsoft." - Om Malik on the Facebook platform
"There's a chance that someday, Facebook will be the preferred place to read this blog because of all the social apps that will be built around it." - Fred Wilson
Even readers of this site last week declared that by a slim margin over Google, Facebook has so far been the most impressive web company of 2007. So there is no denying that Facebook has a good deal of hype, but is it deserved? Could Facebook really be the next Google or Microsoft? Or is all that talk just a wee bit premature?
The Numbers
Facebook's core business is social networking -- without users their highly touted "social operating system" ceases to be quite so social and loses value. And in their core business, the numbers don't lie: Facebook is still in a distant second place. According to Compete, Facebook is visited by about 22.6 million people per month, compared to MySpace's 72.5 million. Both sites are growing, however Facebook is growing faster, up 115.5% on the year to MySpace's 31.7% growth. But even with impressive year-over-year growth, Facebook still has leagues to go to catch up with their rival. To illustrate that point even more clearly, in April, even though Facebook's traffic had doubled since opening up to non-college users in September 2006, MySpace still received 80% of all social networking traffic according to Hitwise.
Om Malik notes that Facebook's page views actually declined from May to June 2007 following the launch of Facebook's platform. That's very surprising giving the number of new users and new pages that the platform has created for Facebook.
The question, then, is why do so many top bloggers and analysts see so much promise in Facebook when they are clearly a very distant number two in their own niche? The answer is: the platform. Facebook has realized that the killer app for the web is the platform, and that the web platform is social. MySpace, on the other hand, has the second part nailed, but the first part still seems to elude them.
The Platform
It's not hyperbole to say that Facebook's platform is one of the most significant developments in web business this year - even though it isn't as open as the hype would suggest. Facebook has taken the widget culture that caused MySpace to rise to prominence (and allowed piggyback companies like Slide, Photobucket, and RockYou! to gain multi-million dollar valuations), and embraced developers, making it easier for them to make more useful applications for the Facebook ecosystem. The Facebook platform is currently the best way for application developers to quickly reach a potential mass market of Internet users (including many early adopters).
A few days ago Mike Arrington wrote about Seattle-based iLike, who have had 3.5 million users sign up for their service since last October. However, since launching their Facebook app less than 2 months ago, they've added nearly 5 million more (over 100,000 in the past 3 days). I can't think of any other platform that gives developers access to so many users, so quickly (and actually encourages that growth and makes it easier for it to happen).
Facebook's platform move was brilliant. They put the power to extend the network's feature set into the hands of thousands of developers, and did so in a way that lets their users decide which features to utilize. So there are thousands of people extending Facebook's service for free, and millions of users deciding which features are the best. All it will take is one killer app -- something that you really need -- built on the Facebook platform to make the above statement from Jeff Pulver true.
Hold On, Says MySpace
MySpace wants to make it abundantly clear that they are still the number one social network on the planet. They put out a press release last week entitled "MySpace Outperforms All Other Social Networking Sites," but it really could have been called "Why You Should Stop Writing About Facebook." In the press release, the folks over at News Corporation detailed how MySpace handily beats all comers in nearly every metric: visitors, page views, stickiness, etc. They're right, of course, the numbers show that MySpace still has a commanding lead on Facebook in all categories -- except one: rate of growth. As I mentioned above, Facebook is growing at a faster clip than MySpace. And the fact that News Corp. felt the need to put out this press release at all is an indication that they are at least somewhat worried about Facebook.
Facebook Hasn't Won Anything Yet
The Washington Post published an interesting article last fall shortly after Facebook opened up about a mini-exodus that was occurring from MySpace to Facebook among young users. The article brought up an interesting point about social networking users: they are traditionally fickle.
"Such is the social life of teens on the Internet: Powerful but fickle. Within several months' time, a site can garner tens of millions of users who, just as quickly, might flock to the next place, making it hard for corporate America to make lasting investments in whatever's hot now."
The article details the rise and fall of once-hot social networking sites Xanga and Friendster. Both were supplanted by MySpace as the "it" place for social networking, and now many people feel that Facebook is on the same track to become the next big online scene. But if the past is any indication of the future, if and when they reach the top, their place there may be tenuous at best. What makes people think Facebook can get on top and stay there? The answer will invariably come back: the platform.
What If Facebook Can't Monetize?
Facebook might have another problem: how to make money. In March, Valleywag reported that Facebook ads performed dismally for a number of media buyers, averaging a terrible 0.04% click-through rate. "Facebook was consistently the worst performing site on just about every campaign we ever ran with them," complained an anonymous advertiser to the gossip blog. Last week Reach Students confirmed the low 0.04% click-through rate (at least for flyer ads).
If Facebook is having that much trouble getting its users to click on ads, there is a question of whether Facebook will ever be able to monetize. They can't offer too many pay services because the platform enables anyone to create a free alternative literally overnight (as people have done with Facebook's paid "gifts" program). The comparisons to Microsoft have one major caveat: when Microsoft grew their platform (Windows), every user had to buy a copy to tap into the application ecosystem. On the Internet, however, the barrier for entry is so low that if Facebook tried to charge for access to their platform, it would open the door for alternate platforms and social networks and there would be nothing stopping app developers from deploying on them as well.
So that leaves charging developers. That's easier said than done. While some application developers might not hesitate to pay for access to Facebook's user base, many of the smaller "just for fun" applications would either need to be purchased by developers with more resources (or by Facebook) or likely face going under. Neither of those options might sit well with users who often form an affinity for the developers of their favorite apps. (See also: Scott Karp's excellent post on monetizing Facebook users.)
Conclusion
So is the Facebook hype justified? My answer would be a very tempered yes. The platform was a truly brilliant move for Facebook, and they have an opportunity for phenomenal growth. But Facebook hasn't won anything yet. They operate in an industry that has already seen the meteoric rise and fall of a number of sites, and Facebook has yet to prove that they can even reach #1 let alone stay there.
Further, if MySpace releases an API in the next six months, Facebook's platform advantage could be greatly minimized. There is also the threat of platforms from Google and Yahoo! (neither of whom have the cohesiveness of Facebook, but both have the massive number of users, the developer support and the resources to pull off just about anything). Last May, shortly after the announcement of the Facebook platform, I wrote that start pages like Netvibes and Pageflakes appear to have the same idea as Facebook. This story really hasn't yet been written, so don't write off start page companies as the potential winners of the web platform wars.
What do you think? Is the Facebook hype really justified? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.
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Seriously, I don't get the hype about facebook, maybe because it is not translated in my language, and that very few people from my country are in there. I've just not seen any need to use it.
I use facebook daily to keep in touch with friends and work contacts, but the whole Facebook love fest has been overbearing lately.
As Read/Write mentioned:
Facebook might have another problem: how to make money. In March, Valleywag reported that Facebook ads performed dismally for a number of media buyers, averaging a terrible 0.04% click-through rate.
Monetization is not a minor problem and will continue to be a source of doubt for me. The CTR rate on the ads are horrible, but that is expected for any social network. They must seek monetization on alternative forms of advertisement: viral videos, sponsorships, company profiles, polls, applications by corporations etc.
Additionally, what we should look at is not just how cool Facbeook is but how sustainable is the momentum in terms of popularity? how international?
But this is not to damn Facebook as being trival and fleeting, Facebook has been playing all the right cards all along and what they will do with the Parakey will hopefully be exciting.
We should also remember that we're still evolving in the space with friendster to mysapce to facebook.
No
Facebook is effective, free advertisement for widget makers. Nuff said.
NO!
you guys are a bunch of idiots, it wasn't designed to win awards or outperform myspace... it's main purpose is to serve college students in networking together.
Just to point out that - the only reason that Myspace gets proportionately more page views than Facebook is because Facebook has moved toward an Ajax model. As has been pointed out muchly, the page view model is on the way out...
But yes, Facebook is much more important as a platform moving forward than Myspace, simply because it's a more extensible reliable sandbox for developers and users to play with.
Newscorp missed the boat with Myspace, and they'll watch it shrivel up and die over the next couple of years, as users realise that it's fundamentally broken and that the user base is grossly distorted and spoofed.
The only people who could catch Facebook are Google, but they just don't seem to 'get' social networking in the same way. The bigger they get, the slower and dumber they get. Orkut, anyone?
What happens to Google, Facebook, MySpace, etc. when people start using tools that block ads entirely? It's happening to TV via DVR and it's bound to happen on the web.
98.9% of Google's revenue comes from advertising. 88% for Yahoo!. Facebook and MySpace are probably somewhere in that range. Point being their revenue stream is extremely vulnerable, not to mention their user base is fickle.
So who wins and beats the inevitable bubble of online advertising? Microsoft. They make products that people buy. Actually, Microsoft should just kill Google by allowing developers to more easily write and distribute extensions for IE. A decent extension would come along that blocks Google ads, and if it spreads Google would have virtually zero revenue.
I loved facebook when it was limited to only college students. I could go on there and talk to friends from other colleges and show what was going on in our lives. Now it's changed to the point where I feel my privacy is being invaded and I need to take down any evidence of how much fun I'm having in college because who knows who might be looking: authorities, family members, or employers!
It was better when it was exclusive to college students.
Well,
just an interesting fact.
Facebook:
Visited by: 22.6 million people/month.
Growth: 115.5% = 26.103 million people.
Myspace:
Visited by: 72.5 million people/month.
Growth: 31.7% = 22.982 million people.
So thats year-over-year growth.
Just to put that in perspective, Myspace grew the entire facebook population in 1 year.
Read/WriteWeb should really state the facts in a more clear way, 115% to 31% seems just like "Woah", but when you look at the actual absolute numbers, in terms of people, it is basically the same growth.
I'm currently a college student as well as my twin brother. I attend UCSB (University of California Santa Barbara, and my brother Cal Poly San Luis Obispo).
If you talk to mostly any college student at our respective colleges, most say they have a facebook and myspace. Though they will also say that they hardly every stay on myspace and they spend most their time on facebook.
With that said, facebook is already outperforming myspace. Another thing to take into consideration is that myspace has all those fake profiles and spammers. How many times do you log onto your myspace and get random friend requests from pornstars, etc. Facebook hasn't had any marketing spammers as of yet.
NO!
Facebook will grow and MySpace will not. Facebook might turn into a money making site, but it'll have to figure that out as it grows. I'm sure it's developers are rabidly thinking about that. But sites like Second Life will be what MySpace is now with much more interaction and less page-loading. Your next article should compare Second Life and MySpace.
Its gonna take a lot more than an API to save myspace. They should have done something about all of the spam a long time ago. Also, their interface is horrible now. It may have been acceptable before, but its gotten old really fast.
Facts an figures aside, Facebook wins hands down in the three key areas of social networking sites.
1. It's functional and nice to look at. MySpace is a disgrace.
2. It's easy to use and the apps a fun, simple and engaging. MySpace is constantly down, difficult to navigate and very very messy.
3. Facebook (thus far) is spam free. Not so MySpace.
These three factors alone make it a MySpace killer. Facebook also seems to attract an older and, dare I say it, more sophisticated clientle, which makes the user experience far more enjoyable.
Hi. I for one think Facebook will be big enough that it caused me to build and launch apprate.com specifically to track Facebook applications, and let the community vote on them.
I believe the Facebook platform is viable enough to build a business around - the question is: what business? Many will try, most will fail, some will do really interesting things - those are the ones I'm waiting to see!
The MySpace member counts are heavily distorted as MySpace is plagued with spammers and fake profiles; whereas Facebook's member base is relatively free of these problems.
Facebook and MySpace also receive very different kinds of press. Most press surrounding Facebook is generally positive, written by tech savvy people. Meanwhile, much press written about MySpace is negative, focusing on the danger that MySpace poses to kids.
believe the hype.
Nope.
Facebook has that cleaner look, but Myspace allows the users more freedom, like using html in comments and using custom profiles.
As for all the Facebook apps, most of them are pointless. i.e. "Zombie" application.
Maybe for school clubs and groups, it's more effective, but ultimately, I believe Myspace is better as a social network.
As for the random friend requests on Myspace... that's why there's a decline button.
Great piece Josh...I agree with "tempered but yes hyped" position. Its indeed the fickleness of the users that is the main factor for me.
Remember Microsoft Passport - It was a great service that solved an important need (no need to have your payment information in multiple places...but it did not fly because it put too much power in the hand of one company, Microsoft.
As companies start getting popular apps on Facebook they are going to start resending the closeness of the system and the share of the revenue (if there is any) they have to kick back to Facebook (in terms of ads they are forced to display etc.).
I think the meaningful trend with social web is de-aggregation and widgets, blogs, ugc etc. are all manifestation of that. I find it hard to believe that one platform would become key...
Of course I have been wrong before (I thought Amazon.com was a flash in the pan)... but let's see how things evolve.
I think a lot of tech bloggers are actually missing the point. Facebook was already great and miles ahead of anything else before the Platform. Innovations like the News Feed, in conjunction with killer apps like Photo and Events, make it what it is.
Its also the little things:
Clicking on my friend Emma's photos gives you the link of 'Photos of You and Emma'.
Clicking on Emmas profile shows our mutual friends.
A feed of recently tagged friends
Setting your relationship status with another person on Facebook, thus linking them.
I could go on and on.
But the point is, Facebooks growth is attributable to them completely nailing the basics from functionality, ease of use and aesthetics, to the granular privacy settings.
The Platform is a very nice addition and potentially an extremely important one - but it would be nothing without the strong foundation already in place. And a lot of the tech bloggers who have recently joined the bandwagon fail to mention this.
"MySpace, on the other hand, has the second part nailed, but the first part still seems to allude them."
I think you mean to say "elude", not "allude".
In terms of the "fickle" comment...the reason why sites like Friendster lost popularity I think was in part due to a limited feature set (it had been such a pain to upload photos for instance). Additionally, there was a time when the traffic was so heavy that you couldn't even log into Friendster or if you did, you couldn't get any pages to load...I think lots of people got frustrated and the whole site lost its appeal. Xanga seemed to embody all the crappiness of myspace, with even less features.
Facebook is definitely leaps and bounds above all other sites in terms:
1. Look and feel
2. Speed
3. Ease of use
4. Privacy
Now with the facebook platform they've been able to give a lot of added value to the users, without additional development costs (they created the framework and a core set of apps and they can focus their time on that rather than trying to make the best slideshow viewer or online scrabble game).
Facebook is da shit! Number 1 on my list!
Currently overhyped (including by R/WW). Useful though.
Ironically, I was just on Facebook for the 1st time not even 3o minutes before reading this article. Must be fate.
I registered and cancelled my Facebook account within twenty minutes of using it. I think the interface is weak and it reminds me too much of Friendster, sans the slowness (read the June issue of INC. for a great piece on why they failed).
I cancelled my account because I instantly realized that is indeed best for high school and college students, which is a great market for getting traffic, but not one that will generate enough "ad clicks" into acutal sales, hence the monitization argument.
So yes, I think past any initial hype, that Facebook won't break into the same social or financial popularity that MySpace has, but can still be very successful.
Facebook page views declined from May to June. Really, you think? That's because SCHOOL IS OUT FOR THE SUMMER. All those students on Facebook are working summer jobs, on vacation, and not on the Internet. I bet you money page views skyrocket in September.
FB will be great when it opens it's pages up to non-members and when they have an *external* API. Right now it's a black hole sucking everything into it and never letting anything escape.
It's almost comical watching people export their contacts from LinkedIn and importing them into FB. When FB gets boring will they be able to do the same thing to move their network to the next greatest thing? I think not.
One of these days one of the big portals will turn their "My Pages" inside out into "Me Pages". Add friends and followers and they'll have an instant Social Network as big as anything we see now. Will it be Yahoo, MSN or Google who work this out first?
Josh, this was a outstandingly good coverage...thanks for that.
in terms of the internet - haven't we seen so many trends come and go, big companies rising and then falling...the net is living fast and furious, and might change its shape from year to year.
I rarely check my facebook account, after using it for about two years a lot.
My 2 cents: Facebook is not revolutionary, not even close to it. and this is why I guess the facebook hype will not be a very long lasting one.
@Scott #22: Thanks, you're right. I've fixed that.
@Samaritan #21: I agree. I've actually been using Facebook since November 2004 (I didn't just join this week or in the past couple of months), and the reasons I still have an account that I consistently use to keep in touch with friends are many of the ones you've mentioned. Without the people, the platform doesn't matter (users are what make any social network ultimately useful).
@skimaxpower #27: That's true, and a good observation. But the number of unique people Facebook attracted in that time actually went up. And according to Mark Zuckerberg the fastest growing age set on Facebook is 25 and up. So, given the amount of hype and press the platform caused, and the amount of added pages that all these apps have created and the rise in total number of users, even with school letting out for the summer it is somewhat surprising to see a dip in page views (by about 1.1 billion, by the way).
"It's almost comical watching people export their contacts from LinkedIn and importing them into FB. When FB gets boring will they be able to do the same thing to move their network to the next greatest thing? I think not."
There are a number of tools for getting your contacts out of Facebook, due to the API. I use FacebookSync to sync contact information to Address Book on OSX.
@Josh - sure, I wasn't getting at you.
Low monetization/click through is a problem - but a fixable one and at that those volumes Facebook will make money. The fundamental problem is that Social Networks may have reverse economies of scale. In markets - eBay to Nasdaq - the network economics are critical and Metcalf's Law applies. This is not true in Social Networks where trust is based on exclusivity. The cool kids on MySpace don't want their Dads there and the college kids on Facebook don't want the work droids hanging out with them.
The platform hype is about "Silicon Valley" (short-hand for the technology industry) needing a big success 'cos not all the start-ups can get bought by GYM. But Silicon Valley always backs open versus closed in the end and so the future will move to the "MeSpace" and OpenID models.
We don't need another Platform. The Platform = Internet. Microsoft control the desktop but despite all the dollars and smarts cannot control the Internet. Neither can Google but they are closer. Every Social Network will follow and have an API. Everything will have an API. So The Internet = The Platform. That works for me.
I think Jessica O. nailed it, the reason I am interested in facebook rather than myspace is the design neutrality. It is simply more informational. Myspace is a design ghetto! My only complaint of late in facebook is the numerous unsightly and tacky applications that seem to be populating many profiles.
Regardless, I'm curious to see what type of applications arise to visualize social networks within facebook. The social timeline is only the beginning..
I'd love to see a facebook counterpoint to the digg lab visualizations designed by Stamen. -> http://labs.digg.com/
From Australia
Great article Josh. Interesting reading. Facebook is growing rapidly here in Australia and the interesting thing is that most of the people are between 20 and 50 and working professionals. From a usability perspective Facebook clearly wins and this will help them growing their base fast. A lot of the Facebook people that are signing up here in Australia are time poor professionals who are not on on Myspace or only marginally active on Myspace.
Like some of the research seems to indicate - Facebook is more something for "grown-ups" and for people who are looking for functionality rather then self-expression through heavily customised interfaces. I suspect creatives, muso's etc may continue to use Myspace as it allows to personalise and 'graffitise'their persona publishing.
At highschool we all may have had a pair of jeans or Dr Martens boots that were full of marker statements or idealist slogans to extert our persona. Then we stopped doing that and went more for functionality. We no longer had a need to publish ourselves on our jeans or army boots.
Facebook's ease of use, fact that it is easy to share make it a valid adversary of Myspace.
Generating Revenue:
If I go by what I have seen so far, I have seen people on Facebook spending $250 for a variety of services within the first month of signing up on Facebook. This means you have a more mature audience with greater spending power making use of the service. Getting the advertising right is not that complicated - sure they will do that.
The fact that all post Babyboomer generation are less loyal and more fickle is really an old conversation. Yes people switch much quicker, communication proxies have changed (we no longer need to have met someone to trust them) and they want things now. In 1839 people thought you would get crushed by the whopping 40kms/hour of the steam train. We now break sound barriers many times and still are not crushed.
Innovation and capability to reinvent are prerequisites of longterm business in the new information age. Innovation needs to be hardwired through your entire businesss- organic innovation is essential if you want to stay relevant. Yahoo>>Google, Friendster>>Myspace are good examples of that.
No business today can afford to sit on it's laurels. We live in "copy and paste" era where powerful investors paste your business to their "clipboard". They then assemble an A-Team of thinkers and operators and you find yourself with a strong competitor...unless you have "tomorrow built in".
Facebook still needs to get where Myspace is - but certainly looks very promising and I think they are in a good position to take over from Myspace.
How they will stack up against eachother is not a function of media's ability to talk about them. Time will tell.
I think there is space for both - although I suspect Murdoch will not want to settle for being second. We may find there is a need for several different platforms being a reflection of our social fabric and the different ways we communicate.
Lets learn and see how Myspace deals with Facebook closing in. Would not underestimate Myspace leadership. It is forced to reinvent.
Facebook management does not seem the kind that gets distracted or influenced by media hype, be it positive or negative. Facebook's presence and current trajectory will require Myspace to muster up all they have to make sure they stay ahead of the game.
http://www.linkedin.com/in/hansdekraker
test SecWho
Like what seems like half the online population in the last 3 months, I joined facebook. From a user experience perspective. Facebook is absolutely outstanding. It has a beautifully flowing narrative and is designed to be viral from its foundation. Awesome.
The apps immediately made it easy for me to wire up my different online presences to an audience (exclusively non tech for me) who otherwise wouldn't have the chance.
Amazing.
I have to be honest, I just started coming here more regularly and I didn't like the Facebook Week at all. I could care less about Facebook, and really didn't understand the point. I've stayed away until just now. Sorry!
Given Danah Boyd's research on emerging class and race divisions in the demographics of MySpam and FaceBubble, it may well be that all the hype comes from a demographic more oriented towards Facebook.
http://www.danah.org/papers/essays/ClassDivisions.html
That said, Facebook sounds like just the thing for me. I registered, tried to figure out how it worked, glazed over at the first impasse and who knows when I'll try again.
The coverage seems more fun than Facebook itself.
I think these useless sites only work because of the hip effect. Before myspace friendster was the cool site, now it is facebook. Today friendster and myspace are "has been" you don't look cool anymore among teens when you say you have a myspace page.
The great thing would be to discover the next facebook.
Great article.
Checkout my views at
http://abhishek.tiwari.com/2007/07/22/social-operating-system-wtf/
I can't believe you quoted Paul Allen the Lesser. That guy is retarded. Have you read his blog and his childish spewings on genealogy? the guy is a legend in his own mind. No one who worked under him at MyFamily has great things to about his management ability.
Comparing Zuckerberg to Alexandar the Great. I will have to go puke, then force myself to read it, and I hope to god that he is joking.....
Can anyone tell me the accuracy of this report?
http://albumoftheday.com/facebook/
You'll need sound on.
One comment on the "what if they can't monetize".
General advertising definitely is not the way to go. You just don't go there for discovering but but for communicating (that's why social networks are so sticky).
Still Facebook has the great opportunity to become the Google of 2007 by introducing:
- FaceSense, person-related ads: (it's a Scoble-idea, I simply dubbed it FaceSense because I'm a freak, you may like AdBook more :-))
- Recommendation platform: what about having your friends recommending stuff and making some money in the process? That should really leverage on Facebook's main asset (social interaction) and would also be a big reason to be in Facebook.
Here's a more detailed post on this:
http://talkmarks.wordpress.com/2007/07/13/facesence-adsense-for-people/
One comment on the "what if they can't monetize".
General advertising definitely is not the way to go. You just don't go there for discovering but but for communicating (that's why social networks are so sticky).
Still Facebook has the great opportunity to become the Google of 2007 by introducing:
- FaceSense, person-related ads: (it's a Scoble-idea, I simply dubbed it FaceSense because I'm a freak, you may like AdBook more :-))
- Recommendation platform: what about having your friends recommending stuff and making some money in the process? That should really leverage on Facebook's main asset (social interaction) and would also be a big reason to be in Facebook.
Here's a more detailed post on this:
http://talkmarks.wordpress.com/2007/07/13/facesence-adsense-for-people/
Facebook is NEVER going to become Microsoft or Google! Facebook is a destination place. It's a place people go to interact with others.
True content comes from Search and from Portals. Facebook is neither. Even if they bring in 50,000 widgets that allows me to bring in more data, I still will go to other sources for articles, studies, and search.
I do not understand the love schmooze fest for Facebook. Sites are saying today that Orkut and MySpace are bigger, yet only FB gets the love. I don't understand this. Jumping on the "cool" bandwagon.
Nor do I understand people who come onto other blogs to promote their own blogs.....
Actually, I think the reason Facebook is only a technorati darling is because of its' platform. Everyone agrees MySpace's interface and design sucks, not to mention many features only work occasionally, but the thing is, MySpace is geared to EVERYONE, not just college students.
Facebook could have had the same success as MySpace had they not just aimed their site towards college students. Not everyone is in college and not everyone has been in college so changing marketing strategy NOW and saying it's for everyone is a little late. Non-collegiates will still feel alienated and post-grads will feel they are too old for the site.
I'm a member of many of the sites mentioned. I remember the exodus from Xanga a while back...Xanga's staff has really stepped it up and Xanga is an awesome site to be on now with many of the same features as MySpace. I also have a MySpace account, a Facebook account, etc. Ilike is a really cool site. I can see why that site is taking off so well, as well as its' sister site, Flixster.
Regarding non-collegians feeling alienated by facebook's being open to everyone - more than half of facebook users are not currently enrolled in a university or college.
http://www.marketingvox.com/archives/2007/07/27/most-facebook-users-arent-coeds-over-34ths-have-toyed-with-apps/