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Two Reasons Facebook is in Deep Doo-Doo
Written by Allen Stern - January 22, 2008
I get that Facebook has a ton of benefits for social networking, business rolodex building, that some believe it's better than LinkedIn for business networking, etc. Some of my friends like Jeremiah Owyang have fully pimped-out Facebook profiles, while I must admit that my profile is a bit bare. But there are parts of it that I just struggle with seeing where this is a viable company worth $15 billion dollars. I'd like to share two examples from today.
Is this Beacon?
I logged in today to approve friend requests and see what the people on my friends list are up to when I was presented with the first "sponsored" message inside of my News Feed for Blockbuster Video and a one-month free trial. Alright, I get the sponsored messaging inside of the feed. But what makes this ad a bit different is that Techcrunch editor Mike Arrington appears to be endorsing this company. I am guessing that Mike didn't approve this message to be sent to his friends in a manner that looks like an endorsement (I will try to contact him for confirmation). It's one thing to say that "x friend installed y app" but to use the friend's photo next to the advert which is clearly below the install message seems over-the-top.
So I went and installed the Blockbuster app and nowhere did it say on installation that I might be used as an endorser for the app and for the Blockbuster rental service. So could my face be now injected into other's feeds that I am endorsing Blockbuster? Facebook apparently still has work to do with their ad program. Maybe they should stick to ads for "sexy women in their 30s" in my area -- because you just know those ads work.
Creating Groups That Are Meaningless
No one cares about the "save xyz" groups - let's stop creating them, please. Then I receive the following email today which I get similar ones about three times a week.
Ian invited you to join the Facebook group "The I Bet Jonas Will Get Atleast 300 Friends on Facebook Group". Ian says, "This is an emergency. Jonas need 300 friends. Now! --I".
Why do I give a crap about Jonas and why is it an emergency?
I believe Facebook is going to have to decide whether it's a social network or a business network or at least give users a choice to decide which side of Facebook to participate in. If I want only business, give it to me. If I want only social, give it to me. And if I want both, that's up to me. How do you use Facebook today?
Our Partners
i posted this on my flickr awhile ago.
http://flickr.com/photos/naterkane/2122439211/
there was also a short blog post written, but it was turning into a tangential rant and never got published.
beacon doesn't scare me, but i do find it both annoying and intriguing... when i went to the movies the other week and just happened to buy my ticket through fandango, it showed up on my Facebook profile. without realizing what i was doing, i approved for fandango to publish my activities to my facebook feed, and now i have no way to turn it off...
i prefer letting my twitter friends know if i go to see a movie and having that content made available on facebook over having the business who sold me the movie ticket let everyone know.
i don't see the blog post so I assume you kept it unposted? thanks for the photo!
Allen, like you, I have a bare-bones Facebook profile. I never intended to use it, it's only there because of peer pressure - those notification emails from real friends in the real world.
But since beacon, I introduced two safeguards, which essentially render FB useless for me, and me a "non-user":
- I don't install ANY FB apps at all
- I only accept session cookies, and the few times I have to log in to check some message, I make damn sure no Facebook related cookie stays on my machine.
I mainly am not in FB because I find (some) users and commenters annoying, along the lines of Apple fanboys. Most of my friends are on MySpace, so that's why I'm there, and it's plenty annoying for me to have just one.
I do not understand the FB valuation at all either. Time will tell, and that valuation is not exactly a traditional valuation as with public stocks, so there's no telling what they'd really get for the company. I just don't get where the money really will be coming from. The moment I start getting more marketing email and pages than I can take, I will no longer have any account, MySpace or Facebook.
Allen - I'm thinking that different soc nets have different points of differentiation.
MySpace - a must for music, way personal and not professional/business per se.
LinkedIn - In the past year it evolved from an online rolodex into a business socnet. Facebook was the best thing to happen to LinkedIn in my opinion.
Facebook - The bridge in the middle of the two would seem to be Facebook. Can a personal/professional socnet thrive? I think they need to focus on making their network appear less spammy personally. Beacon is a part of this issue.
There has been some speculation that these "endorsements" may represent a misappropriation of the user's name and likeness, which is a violation of privacy law. This is utter nonsense. Privacy laws do not apply to Web 2.0 startups and certainly not to Facebook.
Let Mark Zuckerberg do his thing, Allen. Just as the charismatic genius indicated that he's not worried about the ConnectU lawsuit because Facebook has attorneys dealing with the issue, I'm sure that Mark is not losing any sleep over this. And that's a good thing. If he was distracted by legalities and business issues (i.e. revenues), he wouldn't be able to focus on making the world a more open place.
I think that Facebook needs to implement some sort of management system for applications. This isn't directly related to your post topic, but it is very close. I posted about it here:
http://www.mappingtheweb.com/2007/10/19/facebook-app-management/
The same can also be said for groups. Let me know your thoughts...
Cheers,
Aidan
www.MappingTheWeb.com
I really think that after data portability becomes more user friendly, serious competitors will emerge for facebook. Some of them are already there (kaioo, plaxo), which give a much simpler impression of social networking. Kaioo is also doing charity! There are many options to be explored...
It seems like both of your issues with Facebook are pretty easily addressed - should they decide you (and others) are correct in your summation of these problems.
So why would you characterize Facebook's overall strategy and bplan as "Deep Doo-Doo" which implies something fairly dire?
I'm sure there are plenty of reasons to question their current valuation. I'm just not sure the two issues you mention here are at the core of the debate.
Just my two cents. Cheers.
Most groups in FB seem more like badges of honor (or dishonor). My experience is that joining a FB group is more like saying "I support the topic of this group" and less about being an active member, getting something done, or saving time.
Facebook isn't a real-life productivity tool and, with an ad based business model, it's not in their interest to have you spend less time exploring.
Where they do excel is in the notifications cycle that makes you more prone to click around to see what's around the corner and informing your friends to what you're doing. It cleverly and informally appeals to the whole voyeur / reality tv curiosity.
I'm pretty much off the Facebook bandwagon - checking it less often. That said, there are millions of people lovin' Facebook, and millions more Facebook members on the horizon.