Following Facebook’s F8 developers conference recently, the world’s largest social media site has gone through some pretty big changes; and so for what it’s worth, here is our company’s two penneth worth on the ever-transforming, possibly monopolising giant that is…Facebook 2012.
Facebook has unveiled sweeping changes to its website, including partnerships with major music and film companies, in a bid to transform the world’s biggest social network into a key entertainment hub. The seemingly unstoppable Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, has announced new partnerships with Spotify, Netflix and the Guardian amongst other media companies as he said that 800 million people worldwide now use the social network.
“The last five years of social networking have been about getting people signed up,” Zuckerberg told Facebook’s F8 conference in San Francisco. “Until recently people weren’t sure how long the phenomenon would last. Now social networks are a ubiquitous tool used by billions of people around the world to stay connected every day.”
But is this about convenience or is it an attempt to keep an even tighter grip on their devout users?
Is Facebook now “too big to fail”? I don’t mean in the sense that the taxpayer would have to pick up the pieces if it went under, but in the sense that the social networking service has achieved a position of such dominance in the online ecosystem that its eclipse is unthinkable.
These new features ultimately point to a step away from the ‘like’ button, and encourage users to read that book instead of just liking it, watch that TV show or film and listen to that hot new album everyone’s talking about – again, instead of merely ‘liking’ all of them.
These new features are designed to keep us on the site longer, and as such leverage advertising money. What Facebook now offers is no better, or worse than logging on to Spotify, reading the Guardian and watching that show on Netflix all separately – only you don’t do them independently now, you are encouraged to use Facebook as your ‘go to page’ – and do it all from there.
This monster move obviously attracted a moderate backlash with many tweeters getting vocal, including @shawkeith who tweeted “The more that FB wants me to be social, the more anti-social I want to become. #f8,” – and we at our company are almost, almost, tempted to agree.
The other new feature launched recently was Facebook’s timeline feature which begins by showing photos of users, from oldest to newest, with the ability to go back and ‘edit your past’ all the way back to your birth. That sounds odd, but essentially the Timeline shows news and information, presented in a Ticker on your profile page, which will provide “stories” about games that you have played, movies you’ve watched from Netflix, and music you’ve listened to from Spotify. It is your entire online personality in one place – this is your new online footprint. This historical perspective will allow Facebook to target users more accurately with ads based on their tastes, from wine preferences to favourite types of shoes. Again, a very savvy business move but one which may further alienate users.
One particularly funny tweet came through from @DannyDover who said “New Facebook Timeline: This sounds oddly like writing my own obituary as an infographic… #timeline #f8.”
Now, we’re not saying Facebook should worry about Mr Danny Dover, but what they might want to worry about is a poll by the Wall Street Journal in which over 87 per cent of 3,000-plus users said they don’t like the changes which have been made.
As the old saying goes – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
What do people want from Facebook? They wanted to connect – tick, they wanted to share photos – tick, they wanted to invite friends to events – tick, companies wanted private pages – tick. All the updates over the past six years have been designed to make life simpler and allow for a more dynamic user experience. These latest updates have gone way beyond anything the company has proposed before though, and take what Facebook know about its users to an entire new level.
Is this safe? Do you worry? Are you prepared to put your entire life online? Become an open book?
It is strange that people are closed books in real life, but online however, the game changes. Why is this?
Of course there are people who believe this to be the best thing since sliced bread. In a particularly gushing news piece recently, NBC’s Mekahlo Medina provided his take on Facebook’s “Timeline” feature. Calling it the ‘visual experience of your life’, he said the Timeline was ‘the greatest thing Facebook has ever done’. We encourage you to watch the video of his appearance here and judge for yourself, as having watched four times over, we’re still yet to be convinced.
our company would personally love to know what our users make of all this? Do you relish these new changes? Do you understand them fully? Is it making your life better, or worse?
Either way, we’d love to get a reaction from you and open a dialogue which might make clarify matters for the both of us. Please, if you haven’t tried out the “Timeline” yet, here is a ‘How to Guide’ which explains how to implement – give it a go, and be sure to get in touch once you have.
