Arrr, Facebook recently launched the hottest new language - English (Pirate). Go into your Settings and select Language to change it up. A vast amount of standard headings have been pirate-icized, which definitely spices things up.
A tip o’ me bottle o’ rum for them hearty Facebook marketing group on this great publicity stunt!
TechCrunch is reporting that Facebook is opening up their mini-feed to third party services. What does this mean?
Let’s say you’re a Del.ico.us user, and you just added a new bookmark. If you choose to, that news will now show up in your news feed and your friends will be able to see it. The web just got a whole lot smaller.
This also marks Facebook’s first move outside of Facebook, and it could even have been urged forward by new COO Sheryl Sandberg (read Fortune’s report on her moves to make Facebook profitable here).
More on the move soon.
The article is a year old, but senior editor David Kirkpatrick hits all the right notes in trying to understand the significance of Facebook as a communication and business tool.
“It’s not all rosy for business, though. You think we’ve had transparency on the Internet so far? The ramifications for marketers could be frightening if someone builds tools that enable Facebook users to get more efficient at communicating among themselves about products and services they use. It could become just as easy to learn if someone you know was overcharged by a credit card as to find out what concerts they are attending. Up until now most online sources of product information have been unreliable. But if it’s your friend telling you not to buy that shampoo, you’re likely to listen.”
Full article here: Facebook’s plan to hook up the world - May. 24, 2007
If you’re a Facebook developer, user, or even an avid reader of this site, you probably know that Facebook is gearing up to revamp the visual and functional design of the basic Facebook profile. I evangelize about it daily, but this post isn’t about how widespread of an effect it’s going to have (it will be watercooler talk for days). Rather, it’s about how Facebook’s approach to this change demonstrates the pioneering of the next generation of large web companies.
Just take a look at their latest post: An Update on the State of the Profile Redesign. In short, it’s saying one thing: We’re listening to you. How? They held a few ’roundtables’, where developers and users of all types were able to get together and talk about what they like/don’t like about the upcoming changes. Then, they’ve been posting weekly updates on their design process, and keenly scouring the comments left by the 39,011 fans that have joined the Profile Redesign Fan Page. Finally, they also mention that there will be ample time for application developers to modify their applications before they release the profile to the public.
Say what you will about some of their Beacon moves and default privacy policies, but from the perspective of a user of the Facebook tool, I trust Facebook to make the right decision to enable me to communicate with my friends easiest. From the perspective of a developer, they have been smart and quick to upgrade as long as they’ve had the Platform available.
IMHO, it’s the use of a company’s ears that will enable a company to succeed in Web 2.0, 3.0 and beyond, and Facebook is definitely on the right path. While people are constantly extolling the virtues of a social web, in truth there are only a handful of companies (Digg is another great example) that truly leverage their social feedback. Even the prolific Google doesn’t make it this simple to let them know how you feel about their interfaces. And we won’t start into MySpace.
This goes farther than web businesses. It’s rare for even an individual to listen, but if you look carefully, the ability to consume and utilize feedback is the hallmark of any true success story. And when a service-provider of any type and size can hear and understand the thousands of users that truly love their offerings, they have the key to keep people smiling.
This clearly should have happened long ago, as a capitalist system would dictate. If a company isn’t listening to their consumers, then a company who does have the ears will open up, and produce a better product. However, the resources necessary to support these vast lines of communication feedback are a recent phenomenon, and we’ll feel the effects of this business style more over the next half-decade. While older corporations will stumble to understand the importance of having their ears to the web, young dynamic startups will spark a trend of iterative, evolving creations based on user feedback. Just like any modern day Engineering design must incorporate feedback, any web business expecting to succeed in the future is going to need to structure a social feedback system for their web presence.
Rant over.
I just ran across one of the most interesting blog posts I’ve read lately speculating on Web 3.0 over at Master of 500 Hats.
Not to steal Dave’s thunder, but there are a couple points I want to highlight. The Microsoft bid to buy Yahoo is primarily to shore up it’s dominance in the Email/Instant Messaging online sectors. Sure there are side benefits like buying up Yahoo’s advertising, search and traffic, but the winner of the Internet will be he who controls the user.
But with the battle to own the user comes the battle to own the user’s social graph, currently controlled by Facebook/MySpace/Bebo/hi5/could continue to list ad nauseum. I keep referring to it, but all future web advertising will be contextually driven by your social graph, where brands are providing social relevance to users. Ie. “Your friend Katie just saw (insert cookie-cutter Will Ferrell movie) and rated it 5 stars!” (ok I kid, it will be impossible for a Will Ferrell movie to be rated as excellent again… the days of Old School and Anchorman are over).
I think it’s also highly important to note the fact that we as users on the Internet now have hundreds of logins/passwords for every individual site on the net. This is a problem that needs to be solved, and while attempts have been made (Microsoft Passport or the community driven OpenID), nothing will happen until one company owns enough of the user’s Internet life to make it beneficial for the user (really, what’s the difference in consolidating your logins from 60 to 50?). Alternatively, if the smaller communities can build enough momentum around the OpenID concept, it could be viable, but whether that is a possibility remains to be seen.
The final piece of the puzzle are the e-commerce/payment conglomerates. Look for the Microsoft/Google duopoly to put pressure on eBay (and their very valuable PayPal) and Amazon for merger/acquisitions in the next few years.
Where do the small players stand in this heated battle? Well, I sort of compare it to the open source community who has not only weathered giants like Microsoft’s attempts to push them out, but actually blossomed in the modern Internet era. If the small guys can provide real value to users, by churning out innovations while being completely flexible to quickly capitalize on new ideas, they will have a direct line to sink their (small) teeth into the necks of Google and Microsoft. And instead of a one-sided parasitic relationship, Microsoft and Google will leverage these small-time players to come up with new innovations and either partner or swallow them up for big money when it makes sense. And sometimes these guys will have such momentum that they will swim past these sharks to potentially become a shark themselves (could Facebook be this shark? That question requires an entirely new post) (and one more side point - I’m not sure whether I should perhaps be calling Microsoft and Google ‘whales’ instead).
The Internet and Web 2.0 is a playground for innovation due to the extremely low barriers to entry and it’s massive channel to instantly reach all users around the globe. It’s an exciting time to see all the fish in the sea battle (and work symbiotically) to control the Internet.
According to the Newspaper Association of America and referenced over at Editor&Publisher and TechCrunch, Newspaper revenues fell 9.4% to $42 billion in the past year compared to 2006 in the US. For reference, online ad revenues grew 19% to $3.2 billion over 2006. What does this signal? Well, for starters, the looming US recession has and will continue to have a definite impact on advertising revenues, as one of the first things to be cut during tight times are marketing budgets. But is there more to it?
It’s no secret that traditional print media like newspapers are falling on hard times. Marketing executives are being given more options with where to spend their marketing dollars, and while I don’t believe that Internet ad revenues have totally lived up to their potential, innovations in the online space are arriving that will present credible options for said Marketing execs when they determine how to optimally allocate their ad budgets.
First of all, the static ad banner on the side of every web page is starting to be replaced with interactive and engaging multimedia. Online video ads and flash-based multimedia are becoming more and more common, attracting the user’s attention and creating a much more solid impression over and above the typical static classmates.com banner you traditionally see.
But more importantly, online ads are beginning to take advantage of demographics and eventually will leverage individual user preferences, as I alluded to earlier this month, to provide much more relevant and contextual ads that are targeted to every individual.
Finally, combine these new contextual online ads with a solid metrics and reporting system that can track every user’s interaction with the ad, and you can create an objective sales presentation to the aforementioned Marketing executive, giving him or her direct insight into how each penny spent online translates into brand impressions/interactions, and eventually, sales. This gives the online ad realm a tremendous advantage over traditional media, because the feedback reporting mechanisms can objectively indicate the success rate of an online marketing campaign . A complete return-on-investment can be calculated along with with every reportable stat you can imagine, so that the Marketing exec can easily gauge how to optimally allocate their online marketing spending.
Newspaper and traditional media are a one-way street. You can get indirect feedback based on general sales lift, but nothing near what can be done through online metrics. This gives online advertising the advantage, and with innovations still to come to provide even more creative as well as socially relevant ads to users, it appears as though online advertising is destined for continued growth.
On another note - Duncan Riley at TechCrunch wrote an interesting post last November about the need for consolidation in the Newspaper industry to improve their chances of survival in the face of increased competition for advertising dollars.
Instead of diving into my usual rhetoric, I’m just going to tell you about my experience with Audible.com. It’s not Facebook related, but if someone at Audible reads this, they can let somebody in their company know how not to launch their eventual social networking application.
8:30pm: I’m keen to get this fantastic audio book, recommended to me wholeheartedly by my girlfriend. It’s like a Coles note for introductory Macroeconomics. I want to burn it for our two-hour late-night drive.
8:45pm: After a Google search for “Audible.com free offer”, I find a 14-day free trial offer. I sign up and am asked to download some software.
8:50pm: The installation asks me what device I use to play music. I want to burn a CD, but I also use an iPod. Their options have “iPod” and “I want to burn CDs” as separate options. I’m not sure which one to pick so I pick the second one.
9:00pm: I install the software, and in addition to looking *vaguely similar* to iTunes (see screenshot below), it presents me with two empty databases: library and trash.
9:02pm: After realizing there’s no way to actually download or buy anything from within the software, I head back to Audible.com, and find the audio book I like. I check it out, and buy it. The system recognizes I have a free trial, and I proceed to order and purchase the book at no cost.
9:10pm: I am forwarded to a download page, where strangely, all 20 chapters of the book are individually listed, with no button for download all. I click download on the first link, and a pop-up appears: “You do not have the Audible.com download software.” … “Yes, I do” I mutter, feeling the way no usability designer ever hopes their users would.
9:15pm: I eventually find a link explaining I need to restart Mozilla for changes to take effect. I do. I still get the same error message. I see a small checkbox indicating that I have to click the checkbox if my computer uses cookies and is not properly registering the software. Finally, it downloads.
9:30pm: I have now downloaded my 20 chapters, one by one, and now want to burn it to a CD. I launch the Audible software, drag and drop the files, and click “burn”. Audible software indicates I must install Nero 7.
9:50pm: Nero 7 trial version is now on my computer (all 512 Mb worth). I see an option for “burn Audible.com audiobook”. I choose it and drag and drop the files in. Nero asks me for my Audible username and password. I enter them. Nero smiles mischievously: “You can not burn these files.”
9:53pm: I head back to the Audible.com software, drag and drop the chapters into the software, and click “Burn using Nero 7″. I then received this notice.
10:00pm: We merrily start our trip, listening to Ricky Gervais podcasts and the Flight of the Conchords radio show. I crash.
Talking to users of Facebook of all demographics, I find that more and more young people use Facebook as their exclusive method of communication. The archaic messaging system is at best awkward in comparison with GMail or even Hotmail, but the fact that it is embedded in the Social Graph proves its value to consumers. Combined with the recent integration of Facebook mobile, the system provides an integrated way to ensure you have access to all your closest friends.
Well, Facebook is about to make another big move in a small way, by introducing Instant Messaging to Facebook. As can be seen in the video, it will dock at the bottom of your browser as you use Facebook, and enable you to simply send instant messages to your online contacts. It may be simplistic right now, but that’s always what has worked best for Facebook, and I can envision this becoming more and more popular, and eventually spreading out into an optional desktop application. Video available courtesy of FaceReviews.com.
BusinessWeek posted an article that I think highlights the potential and uncertainty about this new social networking market. I regularly point clients and friends to it, and if you’re trying to explain this new market, I’d recommend you do too.
“Building a Brand with Widgets” by Rachael King
“It’s surpassing our expectations,” Peterzell says. A growing number of companies hope they’ll be wowed by widgets, too. Electronic Arts (ERTS), Viacom’s (VIA) Paramount Pictures, Sony Pictures, Gap (GPS), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), Hallmark, and Blockbuster (BBI) are among the businesses hoping to spread a marketing message or raise brand awareness through these modules of content used by millions of social network users to customize profiles or communicate with friends.
The article begins optimistically, but quickly points out that many campaigns have difficulty in standing out in an overcrowded widget market. From my chats with Nick O’Neill at AllFacebook.com, a good strategy is to supplement any social media campaign with real advertising dollars. Companies can take advantage of the many burgeoning banner networks, like RockYou or Slide, and implement a Cost-Per-Install advertising campaign for only a few thousand dollars. The great aspect of a CPI campaign is that it only costs the advertiser money when banner-viewers click on the banner and subsequently install the application. That way, the general branding that goes along with each banner view is in fact, free.
Phil Edwards of Lonely CEO Media analyzes the slow movement of large corporations into the social networking sphere. Specifically, why haven’t large brands moved to associate themselves with Applications generating millions of entertained views per day.
There are of course, as many theories for this as there are terrible applications, but I feel Phil’s analysis is optimistic while simultaneously realistic.
Mashable Live All Facebook
