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After Facebook fails

blogs.law.harvard.edu

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Re: After Facebook fails

#161

Post by roc »

paganel wrote: post #100
polemic wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree with just about all of that. > "Their mobile presence is at the behest of Apple, Google and (arguably) Microsoft." A majority of non-techy types I know bought smart phones because they "do facebook". There is a deeply symbiotic relationship there, and woe is the mobile maker that couldn't provide a Facebook app.

> A majority of non-techy types I know bought smart phones because they "do facebook". There is a deeply symbiotic relationship there, and woe is the mobile maker that couldn't provide a Facebook app. I finally decided to upgrade my iPhone 3 a couple of months ago when the Facebook app stopped working for some obscure reason and I couldn't update the app anymore. I'm a programmer, but probably not a "techie". Also, I…

I think the distinction is still useful to draw a line between those you legitimately interact with and those who are your social networking 'friends' solely because there's social pressure to accept them.

e.g. former coworkers, old high school friends, friends of friends, etc.

Re: After Facebook fails

#162

Post by roc »

pmjordan wrote: post #104
sgift wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but did you notice how they use Facebook? I've watched (and asked) several of my non-techy friends and there reaction was always the same: "Yeah, I just update my feed, look for updates of my friends and that's it." I don't see how Facebook wants to make money of such an usage pattern, so at the moment it doesn't help them very much that people have smart phones to "do facebook".

Most of my FB friends seem to use the mobile app mainly for uploading photos, if my feed is to be believed. From that POV the Instagram acquisition makes sense. How they're going to make money from it I'm not sure, but location-based ads and third-party apps come to mind. Though I still have a hard time imagining the developer appeal for their hypothetical but inevitable mobile app platform.

Aren't Instagram photos geotagged by default? That would make Instagram essentially the "like" button for user tracking in meatspace.

FB wouldn't see everywhere a user goes, but they'd know when/where the user was, when they thought something was worth a picture.

And with the face-tagging stuff, they can get additional time-space data on photo subjects as well.

Re: After Facebook fails

#163

Post by JonnieCache »

Aramgutang wrote: post #90
a3d6g2f7 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine an apartment. Google is like the copy of the yellow pages by the telephone. FB is like the photo-album in the closet. People generally do not open these two books for similar reasons. They have very different usage. One is recreational, the other is not[1]. But FB believers do not want to accept this difference. And it's this difference that makes FB a dud compared to Google. The question I have is what is go…

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…

The key word there is "might."

FB and its believers think that the chances are high enough to make big money, or at least that they can make them high enough.

In actuality they aren't. You might think about booking the flight, but the chances of you actually reaching for the credit card based on idly looking at photos are too small to do worthwhile targeted ads.

The idea that FB can just tune their algorithms until they know exactly what you're thinking is a fantasy based on...

1. an overly optimistic estimation of the SNR ratio of the info people put into FB, and

2. on the hilarious fallacies of the aforementioned Market Economics Fairy which assumes that everyone is always a rational actor, and that everything people do has definite reasons behind it which can be traced and understood, and their future behaviour predicted from, and crucially that these reasons can be modelled with traditional reductionism. This is plainly not true.

Admittedly my opinions here are based on guesswork, just like FBs are, but I contend that I have the benefit of drawing my conclusions without a hundred billion dollars worth of wishful thinking clouding my vision.

Re: After Facebook fails

#164

Post by lmm »

sipefree wrote: post #92
sgift wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but did you notice how they use Facebook? I've watched (and asked) several of my non-techy friends and there reaction was always the same: "Yeah, I just update my feed, look for updates of my friends and that's it." I don't see how Facebook wants to make money of such an usage pattern, so at the moment it doesn't help them very much that people have smart phones to "do facebook".

If people have access to Facebook 24/7, in their pockets, they are more likely to become dependent on it in their daily lives. The mobile app fuels the addiction which keeps people logged in and coming back every day on their browser.

Quite the opposite, in my experience. I can read my feed on my 'phone, with a better UI than the website (turns out native app beats webapp, even when it's tiny screen vs. desktop), so why would I ever bother going to the website?

Re: After Facebook fails

#165

Post by tatsuke95 »

revorad wrote: post #82
cletus wrote: post #44

Here's my take on Facebook (disclaimer: I work for Google, these opinions are purely my own and not representative of the company, yadda yadda yadda). Display advertising works best when you have sufficient, quality inventory (publishers whose sites serve ads) such that you attract advertisers in sufficient quantity and quality. Targeting in display ads works because from the publishers, the intermediary has informat…

1. Your social games argument is really weak. People may play some social games with random people, but they mostly like, comment, have common friends, appear in photos together, go to weddings with real friends. 2. Your second argument is contradictory to your observation that Like buttons across the web are mainly cookie carriers. And as far as lying is concerned, people don't just lie virtually with Like buttons a…

>"1. Your social games argument is really weak. People may play some social games with random people, but they mostly like, comment, have common friends, appear in photos together, go to weddings with real friends."

Go to any message board for a popular Facebook game; it will be filled with people saying "add me!". This is one of Facebook's dirty little secrets. These games have warped the network. They already had to reign the games in by cutting off viral channels. 1 BB registered users? I've seen people with 20 active accounts trying to "game" the games.

Again, this doesn't make FB worthless, just worth less.

Re: After Facebook fails

#166

Post by jbooth »

brudgers wrote: post #139
cletus wrote: post #44

Here's my take on Facebook (disclaimer: I work for Google, these opinions are purely my own and not representative of the company, yadda yadda yadda). Display advertising works best when you have sufficient, quality inventory (publishers whose sites serve ads) such that you attract advertisers in sufficient quantity and quality. Targeting in display ads works because from the publishers, the intermediary has informat…

"A common misconception from fearmongers is that your data is being sold. It is not. " I'm calling "Srawman" on this. The correct conception is that it could be sold and the Market Economics Fairy has predicted that it will be sold as soon as a willing buyer and willing seller agree on a price. Indeed, if Facebook fails, all their data will almost certainly be sold along with the rest of their assets. Likewise, Googl…

Google wouldn't even consider selling that data unless they were losing money, and they'd probably consider a good many things before they'd resort to selling it even in that case.

Right now, Google has that data and nobody else on planet earth does. That's strategic. A couple million dollars isn't worth changing the game.

There are companies that sell browser data, it's anonymized, and it's much smaller than what Google or Facebook presumably has.

Re: After Facebook fails

#167

Post by tatsuke95 »

mcantelon wrote: post #26

I didn't get through the whole post as it's kind of disjointed and meandering, but its initial assertions seem shaky. Personalized ads do have business value. After looking at some videos about Native Instruments audio gear on YouTube, I started getting a lot of Native Instruments ads pretty quickly. Unlike television, I am being shown ads for something I might actually buy rather than ads for things I will never buy…

>"After looking at some videos about Native Instruments audio gear on YouTube, I started getting a lot of Native Instruments ads pretty quickly."

So, you sought out the product first, then received ads? I think that's the point. What does this accomplish from a brand awareness point of view? You have already made it clear you're interested.

Re: After Facebook fails

#168

Post by billybob »

I think Facebook will decline for a much simpler reason: whim.

Facebook was cool when I was in college and it was only for college students. Now my dentist wants me to "like" him on Facebook and get entered in some kind of drawing.

Lame.

"I wonder if there's a social network that's only for cool people like me," thinks the user.

Re: After Facebook fails

#169

Post by alexqgb »

silverlake wrote: post #151
guelo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But advertisers aren't stupid. There must be a rational reason why they keep paying higher prices for traditional ads.

I'm just guessing here... If ad agencies earn a % of ad spend, it's in their interest to spend more. It's easier to spend more on TV, plus it's difficult to prove it's ineffective. Targeted ads on the 'net may someday be really good, but it would cost less and undermine ad agencies' fat fees.

Agencies, in effect, earn a percentage of the spend. But this amount is determined up front. Clients go to market saying "We have $x for client y and we want to know which shops will give us the most bang for the buck."

Shops that over-promise then fail to maintain reasonable profit margins don't survive. At the same time, there's pressure on clients to work with established players, since a campaign gone bad is even harder to defend when it turns out the the marketing budget was blown on inexpedienced and / or desperate people who were willing to seriously undercut competitors just to land the account.

Re: After Facebook fails

#170

Post by gallerytungsten »

Is Facebook going to be the next AOL, left in the dust by a new innovator?

The chances of that happening are excellent, in my opinion.

However, consider the following revenue streams Facebook could generate using a paid membership model:

Facebook Personal - $10/year (no ads)

Facebook Pro - $100/year (small business)

Facebook Private $200/year (full privacy controls)

Facebook Enterprise $500,000/year (enterprise social network built on top of Facebook)

All of these ideas are plausible, and there are plenty more the readers of this site can surely come up with. All of them together could generate a billion dollars per year, or more. Of course, they depend on a shift in Facebook's culture, from privacy invasion and destruction; to actual privacy enhancement.

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