The Moment I Knew Facebook Was Here For Good

The moment I knew Facebook was here for good and was also going to be massively influential was during a conversation last year with my friend Mark.  Now Mark is a very successful builder from Bolton who couldn't care less about the blogosphere, the plannersphere or any other web-o-sphere and despite my efforts to explain over many lively pints of ale, he has no idea what I do for a living.  So when Mark briefly mentioned that he was on Facebook because, 'all my mates are,'  I knew Zuckerberg's vision was no longer a dream - whatever you think of the man or his inexplicable love of shower shoes.  However, possibly because of the very reason that Mark has signed up - ie ubiquity - Facebook is viewed with suspicion by geeks and the digerati in a way that Google is not.  But FB is just powering on regardless.  In this article, Wired magazine's Fred Vogelstein reported on the ambitions that Zuckerberg holds and the genuine challenge it represents for Messrs Brin and Page.  Which can be summarised as, 'searching people, not pages'.  Do you sometimes scratch your head at Google results and wish you could just ask your friends what they think?  That's what Facebook is looking to do.  And now it's making real cash and plenty of it, exploding the notion that there's no money in the social web.  Largely thanks to its souped-up...

...advertising platform providing granular targeting of, you guessed it, people - not pages.  You want to reach females over thirty-five who live in Manchester, watch Eastenders, like dogs and read the Daily Mirror?  No problem, welcome to Facebook Ads.  And note this profile is not a theoretical one taken from the media plan and personified on a mood board.  It's not someone who may or may not be sitting in their front rooms watching a TV show, with the sound down, talking to their friends while they reach for their Freeview FF button.  It's real data.  Data which is reaching an incredible scale with 300 million people signed up making it bigger in populous that most countries in the world.   And make no mistake once people are there - they stick.  Additionally, I would suggest it's the most innovative web service on the planet with its Connect functionality driving forward usage on a massive scale, APIs-galore, corporate brand pages, mobile service, digital gifting and virtual currency. Not to mention its recent purchase of the Friendfeed team, who one can only think are there to help FB out-Twitter Twitter.  Or indeed how its F8 platform drove today's massive growth in applications.  Or the brain drain of engineers from Google who have been hired to understand the mind-blowing amount of data FB is now capturing.  If you need proof just look at how Facebook has become the default, trusted option for the mainstream user to take part in the share-and-compare economy.  As Volgestein notes: "By Facebook's estimates, every month users share 4 billion pieces of information—news stories, status updates, birthday wishes, and so on. They also upload 850 million photos and 8 million videos".  Now there are plenty of good reasons to be concerned about Facebook and its plans.  Ownership of data, visibility of personal information, privacy settings, search functionality, that weird Beacon business and its private ownership base.  However, those things are only of interest to people who study its inner workings for a living and for whom movement in technology trends is akin to the latest football scores on a Saturday afternoon.  No one else cares.  Even if they should.  My buddy Mark doesn't.  He just cares about Facebook because that's where his pals are.  And who can argue with that?

Comments

[Alastair Duncan]

Very good observations JC.

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Alastair, see you soon.

[Rory MacDonald]

"And who can argue with that?"

Is that a challenge?

Admittedly I am one of those geeks, but anyway, I cannot help but find the whole thing creepy. Not the basic concept, that is fantastic. But ownership. Someone else owning your baby photos and the chats you have with friends about them. Someone else owning the chats that sort out meeting up with friends at the weekend.

There used to be a time when Orwell's vision of 1984 invoked fear, was dystopian even. It involved totalitarian repression, but in actual fact people are rushing headlong to sign up the dictator of Oceania to their list of friends. You couldn't make it up if you tried (I did say, I am one of those geeks).

No James, you are right, at this stage I cannot precisely define what or how it could go wrong. But I think the opportunities for abuse, on so many levels, are too great.

I predict some horrific scare stories and the web 2.0 equivalent of a bank run. Yes, Facebook is currently the beneficiary of the herd mentality, but herding is a dangerous game if you get on the wrong side of a stampede.

You sign up for an account, fine, but ask yourself this: would you invest your life savings in Facebook?
Would you invest even 25% of your kid's (kids'?) education fund into Facebook?

I am not saying you wouldn't. I am just saying I wouldn't.

Another interesting one (kind of on topic) that I got from a blog that I think you pointed me to in the past:
http://gobigalways.com

[James Cherkoff]

Thanks Rory.

But 300 million people can't be wrong. Can they?

I completely agree that a single, unforeseen slip whereby a poor Grandmother in Wyoming finds that the photo album of her twelve grandchildren is appearing on an API-driven ad network, promoting chlorine flavoured milk formula to Nigerian children is perfectly possible.

However, if it did, would my buddy Mark care? Do you know what? I doubt he'd even look up from his ale.

I think it's interesting that geeks/early adopters hold such suspicion of FB but that sentiment hasn't been picked up by the mass market. Indeed, now FB is one of the most trusted brands in America!

Maybe Zuckerberg is the new Bill Gates after all...