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After Facebook fails

blogs.law.harvard.edu

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Re: After Facebook fails

#201

Post by hessenwolf »

gulbrandr wrote: post #120
jacquesm wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether or not you "Like" things is irrelevant. The main purpose of that "Like" button is (IMHO) as a tracking cookie. Exactly. Ditto google's 'free' analytics, every adsense impression and the +1 button. Nice to see someone working at google establish this in such a straightforward way, such candor is pretty rare. Most of the time all you get is some marketing bull about how you're being enabled to share your favo…

AdBlockPlus and Ghostery are always the two plugins I install first on my Firefox. http://adblockplus.org/en/ http://www.ghostery.com/

I feel bad running on adblock, and then gorging on cyanide and happinesss, xkcd, smbc, etc... One day I just might click on an add and make them some money.

Re: After Facebook fails

#202

Post by iliis »

malandrew wrote: post #197
Random_Person wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there better alternatives? (I ask this question honestly) As a web master of a very small, personal site, I find that running AddThis or something similar to be vital in generating traffic. Giving users a one click option to share my pages makes it much more likely that they will. Without that option, I have to resort to spamming message boards, Twitter, Facebook, etc manually, in order to drive traffic. I am not…

This makes me wonder if there is value in someone creating a Facebook Like button, Google +1 button, etc. widget set that doesn't keep any tracking data and only sends information about a user to Facebook, Google, etc. when a user explicitly clicks on the button.

Heise developed this last year. They made a two-stage like-button which is disabled by default and sends no data to FB et al. When you first click on it, the real button loads and you can then share what you want.

http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/2-Klicks-fuer-mehr-Datenschut... [german]

Re: After Facebook fails

#203

Post by [deleted] »

snowwrestler wrote: post #194
a3d6g2f7 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you entertainment is a cash cow. But FB is _free_ entertainment. As is your photo-album and the discussions you have with your friends. You appear to be referring to future success. It's like Microsoft talking up "vaporware". It gets people's attention, maybe it convinces some to believe and some to invest, but it offers them nothing. Only a promise of some future of which no one can be certain. We have…

Facebook made almost a billion dollars in profit last year on gross margins of around 25%. They obviously have a business model and it's obviously working pretty well. Now--could they fail? Of course, but I don't see any reason now that they must fail, based on what we know now. I find it kind of funny to see the complaints about Facebook's financial future...I'm old enough to remember when Google was a cool new free…

[deleted]

Re: After Facebook fails

#204

Post by Random_Person »

malandrew wrote: post #197
Random_Person wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are there better alternatives? (I ask this question honestly) As a web master of a very small, personal site, I find that running AddThis or something similar to be vital in generating traffic. Giving users a one click option to share my pages makes it much more likely that they will. Without that option, I have to resort to spamming message boards, Twitter, Facebook, etc manually, in order to drive traffic. I am not…

This makes me wonder if there is value in someone creating a Facebook Like button, Google +1 button, etc. widget set that doesn't keep any tracking data and only sends information about a user to Facebook, Google, etc. when a user explicitly clicks on the button.

Yep! The question is whether to give it away or try to find a way to monetize it. I'd buy it, but I'm not sure how much I'd pay for it.

I don't give a crud about the analytics of AddThis, and their menu is full of options that most will never use. The key point is sharing for the lazy. The vast majority of Internet users are never going to open their Facebook, write a wall post about something and copy/paste my link in their post. That same person, however, may be really interested in it and be willing to hit a little button that does all that stuff for them. That's all I want. I don't want to jeopardize people's privacy.

Re: After Facebook fails

#205

Post by Random_Person »

iliis wrote: post #202
malandrew wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes me wonder if there is value in someone creating a Facebook Like button, Google +1 button, etc. widget set that doesn't keep any tracking data and only sends information about a user to Facebook, Google, etc. when a user explicitly clicks on the button.

Heise developed this last year. They made a two-stage like-button which is disabled by default and sends no data to FB et al. When you first click on it, the real button loads and you can then share what you want. http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/2-Klicks-fuer-mehr-Datenschut... [german]

That's really interesting. I like the concept, but would most users only click once because that's what they are used to? The interface doesn't seem to be that obvious for a non-technical person.

Re: After Facebook fails

#206

Post by jonnathanson »

r00fus wrote: post #187
jonnathanson wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"implying that they could have made much more money later, or maybe implying that public perception of the stock will interfere with their ability to operate." I'm implying both. First, if they'd have shrugged off the early pressure to take on too much VC money, they wouldn't have been propped up with an indefinite runway and would have been forced to get creative, and quickly, with monetization. They'd probably be i…

Not so sure that Facebook's strategy would be in-line with early monetization. Their business strategy was clearly to rapidly gain default status and solidify the barrier to entry of being the de-facto social network... by monetizing you either piss off or scare away users, or decrease your eyeballs (that you can sell in-aggregate to advertisers).

That's been their strategy, yes, but the problem with not finding a way to monetize as you grow -- by putting off monetization -- is that you risk pissing off users even more when you suddenly introduce it, and at such large scale as to satisfy the needs of public shareholders. It's sort of like burying a mess under the rug: it's out of sight for awhile, until it festers, rots, and really starts to stink.

Sooner or later, Facebook was always going to have to monetize. Its deliberate strategy of putting off monetization until it became a de facto standard social network was a gamble. It seemed reasonable at the time to many inside and outside of Facebook. But my point is that, knowing what it was gambling on, Facebook shouldn't have taken in so much money that it was forced to go public before its gamble was ready to pay off. Now, it's going to have to start monetizing quickly and massively, come hell or high water -- at a time when it still doesn't quite know how to do so without pissing off its userbase. It's in a worst-of-both-worlds scenario, which could have been avoided regardless of its user growth vs. monetization strategy.

Re: After Facebook fails

#207

Post by nishantmodak »

gulbrandr wrote: post #120
jacquesm wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whether or not you "Like" things is irrelevant. The main purpose of that "Like" button is (IMHO) as a tracking cookie. Exactly. Ditto google's 'free' analytics, every adsense impression and the +1 button. Nice to see someone working at google establish this in such a straightforward way, such candor is pretty rare. Most of the time all you get is some marketing bull about how you're being enabled to share your favo…

AdBlockPlus and Ghostery are always the two plugins I install first on my Firefox. http://adblockplus.org/en/ http://www.ghostery.com/

Isn't it just easy to Opt-Out from Online Behavioral Advertising..

http://www.aboutads.info/choices/

Re: After Facebook fails

#208

Post by alttab »

Random_Person wrote: post #205
iliis wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heise developed this last year. They made a two-stage like-button which is disabled by default and sends no data to FB et al. When you first click on it, the real button loads and you can then share what you want. http://www.heise.de/ct/artikel/2-Klicks-fuer-mehr-Datenschut... [german]

That's really interesting. I like the concept, but would most users only click once because that's what they are used to? The interface doesn't seem to be that obvious for a non-technical person.

Is there some use agreement that prevents this plugin from submitting the like programmatically?

Re: After Facebook fails

#209

Post by alttab »

fpgeek wrote: post #112
ssx wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with everything BUT if you screen "does anybody want ice cream" down Venice beach in the middle of the summer, I'm sure you'll get some customers. lol But in all seriousness, great post.

Will you get enough customers to compensate for the people irritated (or worse) by your screaming?

Sounds like the beach is full of grumpy people. That doesn't happen often.

Re: After Facebook fails

#210

Post by alttab »

a3d6g2f7 wrote: post #107
Aramgutang wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with your point, a part of me can't help but wonder about the possibilities that would open up if we had the capacity to extract enough semantic information from a photo: If I'm looking at my old holiday snaps and reliving the good times I had, I might be tempted by an ad for cheap flights to a similar destination. If I'm looking at recent photos of my relatives' adorable children, I might be tempted by…

This is the trap. This is what FB employees keep telling themselves everyday. This has to work. It just makes sense. You can keep saying the data is valuable. No one is going to question that it is. We all have imaginations. And advertisers will be curious. They will try advertising on FB. But there's just a big difference in human behavior in the two examples I gave. They are different. Not because I can make argume…

That last bit Proves that Facebook truly is the work of one man.
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