about face.
written by rob feinberg
what is rob feinberg doing right now? having his daily existence plagued by the hyper awareness of what his actual self and his facebook self are doing at every waking moment.
for those of you not in the know, you don’t really exist until you’re socially networked. there’s a new medium through which our lives are to be lived, a medium in which millions upon millions of users are sharing much more than just their current ongoings and photos — they’re sharing an existence.
as the site continues to reach far beyond its original college campus origins, and the number of co-workers, family members, and awkward reconnections swell each day, it seems only a matter of time before the book of faces goes the way of the aol chat room and friendster.
but what if it doesn’t? what if facebook becomes as integrated into our lives as cell phones or google?
if i can get generational for a moment, my generation (y) is remarkably adaptable. most of us have grown up with a computer in our home or in the classroom and the internet has always been one of the most intrinsic parts of our lives, second maybe to air. today, the ability to post and share pretty much anything and everything connected to our lives connected through a cord has given us a power and possibility beyond anything history has ever seen. so it only makes sense that a social directory for the world was the brainchild of a 23-year-old wunderkind.
in 2004, harvard student mark zuckerberg started an online student directory that slowly expanded to other colleges. eventually it reached larger networks and companies, until 2006 when it became open to anyone with a valid email address.
the site has gone through several iterations since it first began, a few of which have stirred up their fair share of controversy. the newsfeed, a feature we now all know and love, brought about an explosion of rapid user outrage when it first debuted. the feed came as a shock to many, as it broadcasted previously private facebook ongoings to an entire network of friends and frenemies alike. with little in the way of privacy controls at the time, people felt violated and helpless. but facebook heard their cries and quickly and quietly amended the feature to what has now become the crux of the ever adapting website. that now infamous incident holds to the key to facebook’s burgeoning success: adaptability and user testing. when facebook decided to do a site redesign, they gave users a testing period to become accustomed to the new layout, thus allowing them to switch back and forth from the old to new model.
despite the 120 million plus users’ the site has gained in the last few years, facebook still doesn’t have an official business model. and while that may be alarming to the revenue-hungry investors trying to capitalize on one of the web’s most trafficked sites, it’s that seemingly lackadaisical attitude that has facebook courting users of multiple generations.
grandmas and grandchildren alike can’t help but poke and engage in the running commentary on culture and day-to-day doings via status updates. being able to see that your crush is at the same goldfrapp concert as you, or knowing that your stalker is just a few bars down from you is an invaluable asset to navigating an increasingly shrinking world. and the posting of youtube clips and insightful articles have fueled more than a few political fires on all sides of the forum. it’s one of the fastest ways to not only share information these days, but to organize. it provides a way in which we’re able to harness the power of authenticity in a way that is at once immediate and broad.
too often, larger corporations buy up social networking sites as a strained means to reach the elusive youth demographic. in the process, they corrupt these previously self-made sites into a headache and seizure-inducing advertising free for all (myspace, i’m looking at you). the sites become so littered with ads, they leave no room for the individuality seemingly inherent to the brand.
facebook acknowledges that “ad systems are built over time through continual tweaking,” and i think it’s damn smart of them not to rush into anything. they’re actively “searching for forms of advertising that fit quietly into the fabric of their communities, rather than trying to interrupt or distract users.” from a user standpoint, i never feel attacked by ads on the site and have found myself compelled to click on their sidebar ads that ask me if “i like robbie williams” or if i’m “trying to train my pug,” mainly because the answer to both those questions is a resounding yes. but user satisfaction is not always indicative of the sustainability of an ad-supported medium.
facebook has reached out to many a mad man and woman, but some marketers are still keeping their distance, concerned that the mixing of their brand with user-generated content has the potential to be a volatile, if not deadly, combination. but facebook has found innovative ways to court advertisers through new methods that work comfortably within the structure of the site. most notably, they’ve allowed users to endorse everything from brands and products to movies, bands, and TV shows, creating credible word-of-mouth advertising throughout virtually any given network.
a site like this calls on companies to think differently and find organic ways to leverage the medium in noninvasive ways. recently, the watsons helped madison square garden entertainment create their newest “intern,” al aaxis. and if his name happens to sound like “all access”, that’s no coincidence. the latest member of the msge family has been traveling among the six venues, hanging with artists backstage, being privy to set lists, and getting a sneak peak at the beacon theatre renovations — all the while documenting his exploits via status updates and making plenty of friends along the way. al has been so successful at generating buzz for upcoming concerts that strangers are now seeking him out to view the latest elbows he’s been rubbing. after only a few shorts months, he has over 1,200 friends, and has been photographed with the likes of jason mraz (below), death cab for cutie, and natasha bedingfield. not only that, but all the attention garnered him some airtime over at fuse, debuting in mid-december, and there are rumblings that an al aaxis blog is in the works.
another site-created attempt at innovation came in the form an advertising system called beacon. like the newsfeed debut, beacon caused a furor over privacy when it sent data from external websites and posted it on facebook. so if you were to, say, rent step up 2: the streets from blockbuster.com, your dreams of being a hip hop/ballet hybrid dancer would be on blast for your entire social network to see. same thing goes for that 2-o’clock in the morning burrito craving that you satisfied through delivery.com. the sentiment was decent, but the feature was not set up as an opt-in element, causing an uproar of privacy concerns from the virtual masses. facebook immediately made amends and now allows you to turn the feature off completely.
but for all the entertainment and information facebook provides me, i can easily forgive those missteps. i appreciate that in many ways, facebook is banking on the power of their users to do their advertising for them. i admire that they’ve created a site that put its users first, while continuing to find financial support in a non-invasive way.
facebook has taken care of us and given us the control that many of us so desperately seek in a site so personal. now with a new program on the horizon, facebook connect, the company is once again spinning even more of a “social web” that will allow sites to build upon the social system that facebook has already created, infiltrating sites ”that have been entirely unsociable thus far.”
the idea of having one online social hub that houses acquaintances and secret nemeses all in one place makes the messiness of real life entanglements seemingly tidy. and if that manageability extends throughout the interwebs, i’m all for it. facebook provides what so many of us crave in this mile-a-minute world — a connection. the beauty in a site like facebook is that that connection can be as deep or as arms-length as you want it to be. it’ll never be a substitute for multidimensional relationships, but if all but a click can prolong a relationship or foster a few new ones, i’d say that’s grounds for giving this site more face time for years to come.
Sources:
Vascellaro, Jessica. (2008, November 11). Facebook Tries to Woo Marketers. Wall Street Journal.
Retrieved from http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122637098500816351.html
Hansell, Saul. (2008, November 13). Why Facebook Likes Small Ads, Despite the Small Dollars.
The New York Times. Retrieved from http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/why-facebook-likes-small-ads-despite-the-small-dollars/?scp=4&sq=facebook%20advertising&st=cse