Facebook Aims to Monetize, but May be Alienating Users
Facebook, the monolith social network currently in charge of the social networking scene, needs to make money… like… really needs to make money. With an impressive 200million users you’d think the site would be churning out profit hand over fist, but it’s not. In an attempt to monetize and keep up with the explosive growth of Twitter, Facebook redesigned last month to look more like twitter, or did it?
When you look closely at the redesign, the real emphasis is more about ‘pages’ and less about ‘trying to be like twitter’. But Facebook doesn’t want to shock it’s userbase with this new emphasis, it wants a slow dip in the pool, as opposed to a splash.
And so it begins. If you haven’t noticed yet, your “highlights” column is probably about 50% page-based activities… your friends liking brands, ‘fanning’ brands, commenting etc. Facebook’s next move was relocating ‘People You May Know’ above the fold… previously it was underneath the ‘highlights’ column, generally below the fold. While the location change didn’t seem to be a big deal, the next move certainly is- “People You May Know’ is now ‘Suggestions’. These newfound ‘Suggesstions’ extend beyond freinds… to brands. Finally the Facebook vision is coming full circle, as it actively ‘pushes’ brands at you based on the activities of your friends. It pulls this off in a cunning way, by mixing in the brands with your friends.
Here is a great example of this, Facebook’s ‘Suggestions’ for me (and a bunch of people I don’t know):
Don’t get me wrong I love the office, but for me Facebook is about connecting with friends NOT about beomcing a poster child for a brand just because i may use/like them. I like “The Office” I watch it every week, but I am not a Facebook Fan of the Office.
As Facebook pushes forward with it’s plans to monetize the question becomes “at what cost?”. Is Facebook alienating users by putting so much emphasis on brands and activities centered around brands? What do you think?
