January 24, 2008 | Thursday
Facebook is NOT a social network! Social utility or futility?
By Matt Brocklehurst, Head of Marketing in Marketing
Facebook is not a social network and MySpace is not its competitor. Says who? Well, Blake Chandlee, their Commercial Director UK, who I saw speak at the Net Imperative Director’s Dinner last night. “Utility, utility, utility” was his clarion call as he, and presumably Facebook globally, seek to categorise themselves as a Social Utility as opposed to a Network.
The distinction apparently is that Facebook do not create content. MySpace do, with for example, Hammer House of Horror, as does Bebo with Kate Modern. Facebook is an “engineering company who are offering a utility to make it easier for people to manage their social relationships online”. I can see what he’s getting at and understand why they want to create this position but I don’t think it will work. Although social network is a relatively new term I think it has stuck. Facebook is a social network. Albeit without content but is that really a crucial part of a definition of a social network? And as for MySpace not being a competitor? Surely these two social big boys are going after the same advertising dollar?
But let’s put these semantic issues to one side. Blake, ex-Yahoo and with his new team in place, was on good form and shared a few insights. Facebook is now the biggest depository for photos on the internet. A whopping 6 billion at last count which according to Blake is 10 times more then its closest competitor which I guess is Flickr. The quickest growing sector on Facebook is the over 55s. And Facebook slang “poke” was recently added to Collins English Dictionary.
I asked him a question on whether he saw 2008 being a good year for Facebook in terms of mobile phone users and commercial returns. (I also asked him about the rumoured Nokia investment but he ducked that! Shame. I think it would be a sensible move for both parties to have Facebook as a default application on all Nokia handsets). Facebook seems to be doing okay on mobile with 600,000 users globally using it. He doesn’t, however, envisage significant ad revenue from mobile nor is it a priority for 2008. They are not there to make money just yet but to get it out there was Blake’s view.
The whole question of commercialisation was a recurring theme unsurprisingly. He outlined the three advertising routes as <1> Display
He covered off Beacon as not being about advertising (but it is in their advertising section on their site) and the opt-out “mistake” by Facebook as being down to zealousness to get it out there. I’m still not sure that Beacon really has a place on Facebook. As a user, to me the negatives seem to outweigh the positives. I for one am not opting in. I also hear the concerns from the other dinner guests that it is less then ideal to have to talk to Microsoft AND Facebook about advertising. Why not a single point of contact? And I must admit the whole process of advertising on Facebook is not yet that simple. But I am a big fan of Facebook and unlike some of the attendees and commentators do not see this as some Friends Reunited fad. There will be significant commercial returns and it is here to stay in a big way whether it’s a network, utility or whatever else.
Note: Blake also appeared on a pretty good Media Week video if you want to see him interviewed click here.
Comments
There are no comments for this entry yet. Use the form below to add yours.