Think about it:
- Facebook is the first platform that had an audience before it figured what to do with them. They capitalized on the fact that people just wanted to be connected across the globe.
- Facebook started to build a world. It now stands like to pivot, and is rapidly demanding the world to build itself around it. Having an extensible platform, capitalizing on its network and linking every site, every application, every business to itself has really worked. Being open is the key.
- Facebook believes it is changing the culture of the world to becoming open. It is driving the need in us humans to share information. Do we all really want to share information? Have we started to because we can? Do we know who reads what we share? Does each of us understand the defaults of the privacy settings? Will it matter for the new generation? The privacy settings have evolved on Facebook and with each new release the defaults seem to depict that humans are progressing to becoming more open.
- Generate Demand: Advertising on facebook does not work like at google- where you get when you search. Instead it is about creating a demand/driving a demand and finding the target audience. It is an easy and rapid channel to spread a message - be it of a product/cause/event. Even better the brand is endorsed by a friend and not by SRK or Sachin Tendulkar. Does that really make us buy? Do we really buy/do/want to experience what our friends are buying/doing/experiencing?
- Games/Collaboration: This facet capitalizes on the fact that when the dimension of a network of friends is added we suddenly look at gaming in a new paradigm. Most games on facebook are community based games. We play with friends/neightbours/strangers who are connected to our friends etc. They are also time based and one is expected to come back and re-visit to keep the game going; People pay to actually buy some of the virtual points/goodies in a game. This market is growing significantly. Again facebook gives the platform and tonnes of gaming companies build on top of this.
- Data and Analytics: Everything you do is available to facebook. Status messages/tags/location/information about what we like/information about where we go/what we are interested in etc. It is the daily log for a lot of people. So many business entities can benefit from this data if they analyze it. Companies are being setup purely to derive insights for businesses via all of this data.
- Business becomes a person: The new trend is that business becomes a person and the business interacts with you if you express an interest in it. You get to know about the latest things happening in the company, you get to discuss with other people, you can comment on what you liked about it. Even better every time you interact with a business everyone in your friend list, gets to see that and a few might get interested in it too. Is this going to be the way new enterprises launch events/customer service? It is the cheapest and easiest forum for a small business to get its marketing right.
The above are just a few illustrations of what disruption and possibilities this network has created. Will the world soon hover around Facebook or will a new world be created? Are we becoming brands/endorsers/links in a business? Are we culturally evolving into a set of people who believe our importance is critical via our brand value in the virtual world? Are we truly willing to share, are we really becoming less private?
Someone nicely said- Facebook has made me have more friends with weaker links and has caused my strong friendships to become weak. An average facebook user spends close to 30 minutes a day once logged in, on this network - we get lesser time to focus on our real life relationships.
I want to leave this blog with these questions lingering in your mind. Because these were certainly questions that were lingering in mine.
