23 Musings

Another big news story today is the dip in Facebook users from the UK of 5% from December to January. Much is being made about this being the backlash to the poorly executed advertising projects or the natural move away as it becomes fad rather than fashion.

I have my own opinion... I think it's purely the January blues. Think about it; December is a huge month for keeping up with friends, arranging events and parties and reconnecting with old acquaintances. Come January though, we're all back at work, busy, tired, dieting, looking for holidays and generally keeping a lid on the credit card as we recover from the spending excess.

Now does a dip in January seem that unusual for a social network which basically encourages social interaction between friends?

Alright, I may be being a little blaise but I wouldn't read too much into the dip and I certainly wouldn't be talking about the demise of Facebook quite yet.

According to Watchmouse, a useful looking site offering a suite of web performance, load testing and monitoring tools that I've been evaluating.

Watchmouse performed some tests on most of the major social websites of the moment. The Watchmouse Site Performance Index quantifies the users perception of website speed and availability using the load time of the homepage with added penalties for components that fail to load. A very useful metric.

Out of 104 sites monitored 51 showed a Site Performance Index of over 1000 which indicates a slow load time which could result in a poor user experience.

Facebook came off worst of the lot. I've been finding Facebook increasingly frustrating with it's slow response times. I think it's time they put some of that funding to good use and increase the size of their data centres (or maybe look at their architecture).

The full results of the testing can be seen here.

Even if you're not a member...

Beacon is raising privacy concerns left right and centre! It's becoming a bit of a thorn in the side of Facebook and could help increase the backlash that they will face through their continued advertisation (is that a word? Maybe it should be!). There are already reports of some advertisers pulling out of using the system, worries about how Beacon tracks users without them opting in and now it seems they may be receiving data on anyone whether a member of Facebook or not.

PC World is carrying a story about the results of investigations into the Beacon system by some security researchers. They've found that even if you don't have a Facebook account or your account is deactivated you will still be tracked on any Beacon third-party sites and your data sent back to Facebook. Quite what happens to that data we don't know, but one would imagine that it sits on their servers hoping you will sign up so they can identify your cookie and serve ads to you.

It's all getting a bit big brother. Facebook appear to have monetisation as their mantra now, where as they started off being useful they are gradually becoming surplus to requirements!

Thanks to Read/WriteWeb for posting this interesting study in a nice easy to view Slideshare way.

There's some interesting thoughts about structure, how identity is managed, the types of networks available to users, followed by case studies of some of the major players.

The NY Times is reporting that Facebook has retreated on it's Beacon advertising idea. Instead of auto populating your news feed with information about your purchases on participating sites (unless you opt out on that retail site), they're providing a one-click way to opt out of Beacon altogether.

This is what the users have been looking for and should appease them. 50,000 people signed a petition against this.

A report has been released by Anderson Analytics as the results of a survey of the Marketing Executives Networking Group (a 1,700 strong network of marketers at VP level or higher). The survey asked what marketing concepts these executives thought were going to be the top trends and concepts in 2008.

Worryingly, when asked which marketing concepts they felt were going to be most important the second highest answer turned out to be SEO!

Now, I don't know whether marketers are unsure what search engine optimisation is or perhaps this was a particularly 'offline' group of marketers, but SEO is already hugely important and in my eyes if you haven't grasped that yet then it's a bit late. Saying that it will be the second most important concept next year is amazing to me. It's been part of my life for 12 years and is really just part of the routine I go through for any digital project.

Here's the rest of the list:
If you had to ask me what some of the concepts I thought were important for next year were (in digital), I'd say:

• Offline/online translation (getting your offline campaigns translated in a seamless manner onto digital media, something that really isn't being done very well at the moment)
• Viral (campaigns should always be thought of as viral if they touch the web)
• Widgets (cross pollination of marketing campaigns online using widgets)
• Social media (yes, it's huge this year, but next year should see it mature and the launch of OpenSocial will make it more important than ever)
• Banners (controversial one this but we are now at a stage where banners should become more like widgets and really start to become properly engaging, whether this will happen I'm not sure as most agencies who design banners aren't particularly forward thinking)

Underpinning all of those, and every other online marketing concept, should be SEO.

What do you think the key concepts of 2008 will be?

Very interesting story on the Channel 4 website today.

Apparently, a Facebook user has logged an official complaint with the UK Privacy Watchdog after it transpired that trying to leave Facebook didn't actually mean that your data was all deleted and removed from their servers. Actually, when you try to leave Facebook all it does is deactivate your account and keep the data on their servers so anyone who changes their mind can easily sign back up again.

Now that's all well and good, but storage of personal data and photos of someone who doesn't actually want to use your service is blatantly against the UK Data Protection Act (I believe). The act is designed to protect people like you and me from having their personal data misused in any way. Facebook definitely have the resources and technical know how to offer a way to delete the data for those who really want to delete an account. By not doing so they are making it very difficult for users to clean up their trail of data, it could take hours to go round the site deleting everything you've ever posted or uploaded.

Will be interesting to see how this pans out! I do wonder whether MySpace and Bebo etc offer this full deletion service or whether they are also possibly infringing on ex-users privacy.

A study from PQ Media shows that word-of-mouth marketing has grown by 35.9% in 2006 (to $981m) and is expected to be well over $1B in 2007 (maybe as much as $1.3B). Now, over 90% of word-of-mouth marketing is offline still but that's changing and with the new opportunities for communication and engaging your customers on the web I'd expect the shift from off to online to be pretty dramatic over the next year.

In 2006, word-of-mouth marketing was still the smallest of the main segments of marketing activity, however it grew almost five times faster than the overall marketing services sector, demonstrating that this is a market segment that is maturing rapidly.

I wrote some time ago about the power of word-of-mouth and how it had been rated as the most trusted form of advertising by consumers. Recommendation is highly valuable to any brand and likewise getting the wrong kind of PR from consumers who don't like your product or service can be extremely detrimental to a brand.

The rise and rise of social media and networking on the web is going to help the online medium become the biggest platform for word-of-mouth marketing in my opinion. There are a multitude of ways you can interact with your consumers and they can feedback to others on your behalf. Facebook is proving to be huge for word-of-mouth, getting a strategy to utilise this new exposure is really important for brands right now as if they don't control this themselves to some extent it will happen anyway without their input (which could be bad news for some).

Good news for the viral industry as well! I expect viral to take off in a massive way in 2008 as agencies and marketers work out how to integrate a good viral campaign with platforms such as Facebook and OpenSocial. This will open virals up to a much larger audience and facilitate much larger community conversations about brands.

Brand protection has never been more important so I hope you have your social media monitoring in place?

Techcrunch has a great article on the emerging rumours about 'Maka-Maka' the hotly discussed coming social platform that will apparently tie all Google's online properties into a stream of social attention and activity data.

I mentioned this ambition in September, it seems the rumours back then were true. All that remains to be seen is quite what is going to emerge from all of this. Techcrunch's commentary is spot on and covers all the angles so I'll say no more apart from that I really hope this results in a set of fully open API's and a stream of data (as Techcrunch surmises). That will be an incredibly powerful tool and enable a new surge in development of web apps coming from outside Google, some of which could even compete with Facebook.

How does Orkut fit into this picture? I hope they recreate it as a social hub for your online attention and activity streams.

When it's on Facebook it would seem!

Valleywag has uncovered the rather dubious practices going on at Facebook HQ. Employees at the world's most popular social network have access to every users profile information. Not only that, they have access to a log of all the user profiles you have looked at during your time on the site.

Obviously some people within Facebook have to have open access to the whole database of users and their activities, however to make this open to everyone seems a major breach of privacy to me. I don't want their junior developers reading my wall posts, or their interns knowing who I have added to my top friends (and who I haven't).

This breach of privacy becomes even more worrying when you think about who are members of Facebook. From political candidates to pop stars to Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, all their personal and attention data is available to Facebook employees.

It's unknown whether the data available to employees includes the more sensitive messages and contact details.

It's seen as a perk of the job, but to me this just seems plain wrong!

Many people assume that social networking is a strictly western past time, with the vast majority of users coming from the U.S. and western Europe.

Not true at all! The latest figures from comScore show that it's a truely international phenomenon and is actually being lead by the Asia Pacific region at the moment.
This leads me to deduce that it's not all about Facebook and MySpace. Neither have the presence in these other areas of the world. Orkut, Google's social network offering, is massive in Latin America and making waves in Asia, but something else must be contributing to these Asia Pacific totals.

Engagement wise, it's Latin America leading the way. The average social network user in Latin America spends much more time engaged in social networks than users in North America or Europe. Could it be that Orkut is more engaging than Facebook?
The figures above would seem to suggest that although Asia Pacific are heavy users of social networks they are not as engaged and are using them for different purposes to the Americas (perhaps).

Lastly comScore have a breakdown of the regions with what social networks they prefer.

This is where it suddenly jumps out that Friendster is doing really well in Asia, and that a network called CyWorld accounts for a lot of the numbers in that area but doesn't figure at all in EU or U.S. Also obvious from these figures is that Facebook just doesn't feature in Asia or Latin America, they have a massive opportunity to break into these regions and gain a lot more eyeballs!

Just a quick post to publish some of the thoughts that are appearing on the web about the huge valuation of Facebook. The $15B valuation makes it the 5th most valuable U.S. internet company according to Michael Arrington at Techcrunch .
Is a company with no evidence of profit actually worth such a huge sum? Possibly; it has the traffic (the most important thing for any site which will derive most of it's revenues from advertising), it's just signed a deal with a good technology partner (Microsoft), it's open standards should help it (unless of course MS integrate their services with it, how open would it's platform be then?) and with the current bubble mentality it's likely to get more investment very easily.

The BBC has published 15 reasons why Facebook may actually be worth $15B. Very interesting, my comments interspersed in blue:

1. The network has gone viral in the last 12 months, with more than 50 million users worldwide and a user base that is growing faster than great rival MySpace. According to Facebook, it adds 200,000 new users each day.
Yes, it's certainly a traffic monster! The growth rate is astounding, but that could slow as it must reach a saturation point eventually. The eyeballs is great for advertising revenue though so that should guarantee them a profit (eventually). They need to be careful to avoid the saturation point though, keep it fresh, become the webtop of choice and don't let anyone launch something more interesting (or the fickle web users will forget about you very quickly).

2. The average user spends 3.5 hours a month on Facebook - more than the average user on rival MySpace - which is increasingly attractive to advertisers.
Funny one this; I don't spend long on it at all, in fact I've taken to updating my status via a browser plug-in now. So a lot of people must be using Facebook as their email and communication alternative, that's what they need to do to keep the eyeballs, become a default location for peoples web browsing.

3. Facebook is the current Web 2.0 darling - popular with ordinary users and "tech heads" alike.
Darling of the moment, but it could easily slip from being the techies darling, especially with Microsoft on board.

4. US research reveals that Facebook users come from wealthier homes and are more likely to attend college than MySpace users - increasing that attraction for advertisers.
Not sure on this one; often the more prosperous will be the earlier adopters anyway, and as Facebook descends closer to the more chavy MySpace I believe the demographic will change anyway.

5. Microsoft's investment makes them a serious player in the growing market of "social advertising". Social network profiles are full of personal data that users voluntarily hand over, which is very useful for targeting adverts.
Big point this one! The data Facebook is gleaning is amazingly powerful to an advertising network. Facebook could be one of the first websites to carry adverts that are actually contextual and useful to their targets, this can result in a huge revenue stream if done right.

6. Sixty percent of Facebook users are outside of the US - so Microsoft's investment buys access to a global audience quickly and simply.
Microsofts ad network is global anyway and there are plenty of other places they could have invested in to get a global market. Global doesn't matter as much as size (as the old adage goes).

7. Facebook is the new web: The decision to open up the network to outside developers turned Facebook into a destination for many uses, like messaging, photos and video. Of course, as Facebook is on the web it could never really be the new web.
Facebook could be the newest web if it integrates with Microsoft Live platform... That could be huge and really make it into a webtop.

8. Every major content firm with an online presence is either working on a Facebook application or has already launched one - from Google to the BBC.
Hype; everyone will always try to dive into something new which gains popularity as quickly as Facebook. I don't believe that is any sign of value.

9. According to a report, 233 million hours of work are lost each month in the UK due to staff looking at social networks. Advertisers can now target people when at their desks.
Advertisers have always been able to target people when at their desks, now they can target them on another site where people are actually very engaged and in my opinion less likely to interact with adverts than a traditional site or portal.

10. The openness of Facebook is attracting a wealth of talented developers who can launch their applications to millions of users quickly.
Yes, but this helps those developers make money it doesn't increase Facebooks value directly, only indirectly. Of course the better the developments the greater amount of traffic is attracted...

11. Facebook messaging is the new e-mail. Everyone feels stressed from a deluge of e-mail from unwanted people and companies. But Facebook messages are always from friends.
How long till spam becomes a feature of Facebook??? If Facebook could integrate with Live Mail and become the email destination of choice that would be the coup of the decade.

12. Facebook's "status updates" have become the easiest way to let friends know what you are doing and how you are feeling at any given moment.
Along with Twitter and a multitude of other status alert services. I do like the Facebook status engine, but it can get annoying. We need better ways to filter the types of alerts sent!

13. Facebook thrives on playful applications such as Pirates, Zombies, Super Wall and Top Friends, which have made the network a place to play as well as communicate.
And they add no value! All style no substance this aspect of Facebook, it needs more productivity apps and networking features to be really succesful and not end up another MySpace.

14. Facebook is the acceptable face of blogging - you can reflect your life and personality online without being seen as a "blogger", which often carries a geeky stigma.
Geek? Me??

15. Facebook is worth $15bn only because Microsoft says so. The value of Facebook is based on a 1.6% share of the firm being worth the $240m Microsoft paid for it. Microsoft and Google were in a bidding war for a slice of the firm and both companies have large pockets. This was not just business, this was personal, according to some analysts.
Very true! It will take a market valuation for me to believe it is worth so much, and even if it had one I'm not sure $15B is worth it in it's current state. A year down the line, if it becomes a web starting point of choice then it may command a valuation many times higher!

Some good, thought provoking points from the BBC there!

So Google owns a social network called Orkut. I'll forgive you if you didn't know that as it's not the best known of the social media darlings of the moment, that accolade sits with the Facbook, MySpace and Bebo's of this world.

However, Orkut is actually doing really well, organically growing in markets around the world where even Facebook doesn't really get a look in. Orkut is doing really well in both Latin America and the Asia-Pacific regions. In Latin America they command double the traffic of Facebook and MySpace combined with approx 12 million monthly visitors. In Asia-Pacific they command 11 million visitors per month and have recently taken the lead as the most popular social network. In the US however they receive just 600,000 visitors per month, although that is climbing.

Business Week has a good article on Google's social ambitions which muses that they will be releasing a new set of API's for Orkut (around November 5th) and some of their other services, allowing developers to build on these and turning Orkut into a platform (similar to Facebook). Google may take a slightly different tack to Facebook though and open up much more transparently, allowing developers to create much more value from applications than purely poking or throwing things at Facebook pals. Orkut may see apps such as one that allows users to see who is online of their friends on Facebook and vice versa. There's also talks of Orkut and Google Maps mashups, GMail and Calendar apps etc. Sounds much more useful than Facebook already!

Of course the article mentions Socialstream too, which I blogged about in August. That's the biggy! Get this kind of cross platform social network integration working and you're onto a winner. Make your social network the hub for it and you will see immense growth (in my opinion).

I wouldn't write Google off quite yet. Orkut has a lot of potential and Google have the tools and the muscle to make a big dent in the other social networks traffic graphs!

So the backlash has begun. There are groups on Facebook devoted to keeping it free of the kind of useless apps that are popping up daily on the platform and other groups begging it not to turn into another MySpace (which is interesting when MySpace has recently added structure and clarity to profile layouts). Brad Stone wrote a great article in the NY Times about the proliferation of applications for the platform.

And now we have the ultimate app! Dramatic Whitespace is just that, a square of whitespace which you can place on your profile. Developed by a guy called Adam Bildersee it has 21 active users (not bad for something that does nothing).

I get loads of app requests from friends to become anything from a zombie to a keeper of virtual goldfish. Now none of that adds any value to my experience of Facebook, what I want are apps that add functionality, add value, integrate with other web services I use, deliver me useful information and allow me to make Facebook a homepage for my browser. Currently my homepage is Netvibes (including a Facebook app which means I don't have to visit the social network too often) which I love, Facebook has a long, long way to go before it could ever provide that much usefulness.

It must be a sign of social networking success I reckon, first NY State now New Jersey State Attorney General Anne Milgram said on Tuesday her office has subpoenaed Facebook to discover whether convicted sex offenders in the state have profiles on the popular social networking site.

Milgram issued the subpoena on Monday to Facebook along with letters to 11 other social networking sites asking them to compare member accounts against a list of sex offenders.

Facebook has until October 12 to respond to the subpoena, which asks for all information concerning any user identified as a convicted sex offender.

I'm sure there will be more to come from other states as they all jump aboard the legal bandwagon with the latest hyper-successful social networking darling!

Rumours are flying about that Facebook is planning it's own ad network and will end up killing off all the start-ups currently offering those services with Facebook.

It's natural for Facebook to have the desire to own this itself. After all, the data that's so attractive to all these start-ups is sitting on their servers and should be under their control, the fact that they opened the doors and let everyone have access won't matter in their eyes, they can easily shut the pretenders out.

Could be the end of many start-ups working on the best way to integrate ads into Facebook and target them according to the content of profiles.

Of course, Facebook does currently have a deal with Microsoft so they could also be seen as a loser if Facebook do build their own network out.

Well so says CNBC and the Wall Street Journal!

This story just out on CNBC says that Microsoft is considering an investment in Facebook of up to 5% of the social network. This cost is said to be $300 to $500 million which would value Facebook at up to $10 billion!

Apparently they're in talks about a possible deal.

It would make sense. Microsoft don't really have any social network interests and this would be a foot in the door and one in the eye for Google (who also expressed an interest in taking a share). Microsoft could do with a ready made advertising community, and this is one of the biggest available.

I'll wait to see what happens with interest on this one!

Mark Zuckerberg has announced a new rewards system for Facebook developers. They are offering up to $250,000 for new, innovative apps built on the Facebook platform. There's been a huge rush to build apps resulting in over 4,000 currently (a lot of which are less than impressive), this should see the hype continue in the developer community and maybe tease out some more valuable applications. Anyone can submit their app and they'll be judged as to their worth with some receiving a cash injection.

In other Facebook news, they've announced that they're brand of JavaScript, the catchily named Facebook Javascript (FBJS), is now out of beta and into version 1.0. This should give developers more hooks into the platform and enable creation of seamless 'web 2.0' style applications to embed into users profiles.

So now developers have more tools at hand to try to win a reward for their apps. How long till the platform hits 10,000 apps? I reckon about three months at this rate!

The rumours are flying around after a Yahoo (YHOO) employee mistakenly let the cat out the bag about a new service called Yahoo Mash. Best guesses at the moment are that it's a social network built on top of exisiting Yahoo 360 technology. Worst guesses are a mashed potato recipe site or that it could just be something to do with presidential debates (how boring!).

Let's hope it's a really good social site which will put the cat amongst the pigeons in social networking land!

Facebook has announced a new era in their service, the era of no-privacy.

Public search listings are coming from today, while profiles have always been searchable by members, now they can be searched by the public at large too. And more worryingly, your public search listing can also get indexed by search engines like Google now.

Facebook has always seemed to favour the walled garden approach to social networking but this shows they are willing to open up the walls and let the public in.

Personally, I'm not too bothered as I wouldn't post anything on my Facebook profile that I didn't want people to see. The people who will be really bothered will be professional networks (Linkedin etc) and white pages search engines as this move brings Facebook firmly into those territories.