Facebook's SocialAds have great promise. But I hope for their sake they have overcome an issue that seems part of the fabric of this particualar social network.
The default mode of every application I use on Facebook is that as soon as I sample it I am presented with a pre-filled series of tickboxes against my friends - whom it's all to easy to infect with whatever I fancy. It is this which has played a huge part in driving facebook's exponential growth.
This is all good for SocialAds when/if I am selective. But the default is not to be. In other words the balance is in favour of spamming all my friends.
SocialAds will be making a dangerous assumption if it believes all my friends want the same things.
Spam is initially ignored, moves on to annoy, and ultimately inspires an angry backlash.
So the very thing that has driven the exponential growth for Facebook is exactly what could crush its potential for financial success - indeed kill it as a platform. Look at the growing annoyance with vampires and zombies on facebook, for example.
Of course, we have to assume that facebook have worked this out and that the touch will be lighter, that segmentation will be driven by friend interactions and selections. But there are signs the viral imperative is endemic in facebook's build.
For example, I sent a message to the Friends of Faster Future group on facebook yesterday. And then I had to send another - apologising.
It seems many of the group received my first message five times - an error entirely created by the facebook machine (update - I note my facebook ID stopped working this morning [10.10am], turning the friend badge on this blog into a simple link to facebook - and preventing me from accessing my facebook account altogether - not a good time for the tech to go belly up is it Mr Z?). Annoying enough if it's from a friend and relevant to you. Imagine if either of those conditions isn't met?
Did Facebook open the viral throttle only so it could grow to this commercially viable scale and is now ready to close it in the interests of actual commercial success?
The balance between the needs of its users and the needs of its commercial partners will be a tricky one to maintain.
The further ahead you look - the faster you go | davidpcushman AT gmail.com | These are my views and my views only.
Showing posts with label commerce. Show all posts
Showing posts with label commerce. Show all posts
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Wednesday, October 25, 2006
Killer application for 3G discovered. Media firms queue here.
"Anyone in the media industries, or running an internet service - needs to know... if you are not on mobile, you won't be relevant soon... Any service, product, company, brand or entity needs a mobile phone based digital community presence."
Tomi T Ahonen
SMS has been the killer application of 2G mobile. It was only ever added as an after-thought so that you could be sent an alert when you got a voice mail. Now it's the biggest single data transfer process in the world. There are almost twice as many active users as there are of the internet. And it makes huge amounts of dosh.
So the challenge for experts in the 3G field has been finding the same surprise killer application lurking in what 3G can do/make available.
Tomi T Ahonen has been seeking it with the best brains in the field for years.
And now he thinks he's found it.
READ THE WHOLE THING HERE on Communities Dominate Brands (see recommended blogs).
It's a response to questions raised by CDB regulars (myself included) following on from Tomi's report on the staggering scale of revenues now being earned in Social Networking on mobiles.
Here's just some of the highlights:
"3G is looking for a killer application. It is hoping to discover the surprise hit, the kind of totally unpredictable upside surprise, that SMS text messaging was in the 2G world.
"Now I finally have it.
"Mobile Community Services will be the killer app for 3G. Call it Mobile Social Networks... Call it Digital Communities on 3G. Call it mobile blogging, moblogging. User generated content on mobile. But trust me, Communities Dominate.
"We now have found our first true killer application for the 3G space. And it is the digital community services.
"For the mainstream IT, telecoms and media world, interactive social networking - like blogging - is still a "black box" science, a voodoo mythical enigma, perhaps best left for the younger generations...
..."nearly 2.6 billion users with mobile phones, and close to 10% of them already using the high speed 3G phones. Anyone in the media industries, or running an internet service - needs to know this is the biggest pond, if you are not on mobile, you won't be relevant soon.
"This is the industry to be in. Any service, product, company, brand or entity needs a mobile phone based digital community presence.
"If you are not there, your competitors will be, and you will be crushed. If you are there, this is the place where finally, of internet services, you can earn money. You do not need to wait for some magical level of "eyeballs" to sell advertising.
"The mobile internet is inherently better than the traditional web, because of that very fact - every service is billable, every time your service is used, you get paid. Not to mention it's much bigger than the internet and more addictive and the clear choice of younger users.
"Understand that you can be part of the growth, when the 3.45 Billion turns to over 5 billion next year, and over 8 billion in 2008. Make your millions in it NOW!
"Do not for one moment think, that mobile will be "enough". NO. You HAVE to be multiplatform."
The need to move to social communities on mobile has been clear to me for some time (and focused for me by reading Communities Dominate Brands).
My worry is that media companies are shunting this into a bit of a ghetto, just like they did the internet in its infancy. This should be at the heart of our plans for real and rapid growth.
I believe there are HUGE growth opportunities even in what we think may be mature of declining markets - IF we understand how Generation-C intersects with them.
It's not enough to make old-style offerings on what you might regard as a Gen-C platform - and to a non Gen-C audience!
That is our most pressing challenge. Where is it placed in your strategy?
Tomi T Ahonen
SMS has been the killer application of 2G mobile. It was only ever added as an after-thought so that you could be sent an alert when you got a voice mail. Now it's the biggest single data transfer process in the world. There are almost twice as many active users as there are of the internet. And it makes huge amounts of dosh.
So the challenge for experts in the 3G field has been finding the same surprise killer application lurking in what 3G can do/make available.
Tomi T Ahonen has been seeking it with the best brains in the field for years.
And now he thinks he's found it.
READ THE WHOLE THING HERE on Communities Dominate Brands (see recommended blogs).
It's a response to questions raised by CDB regulars (myself included) following on from Tomi's report on the staggering scale of revenues now being earned in Social Networking on mobiles.
Here's just some of the highlights:
"3G is looking for a killer application. It is hoping to discover the surprise hit, the kind of totally unpredictable upside surprise, that SMS text messaging was in the 2G world.
"Now I finally have it.
"Mobile Community Services will be the killer app for 3G. Call it Mobile Social Networks... Call it Digital Communities on 3G. Call it mobile blogging, moblogging. User generated content on mobile. But trust me, Communities Dominate.
"We now have found our first true killer application for the 3G space. And it is the digital community services.
"For the mainstream IT, telecoms and media world, interactive social networking - like blogging - is still a "black box" science, a voodoo mythical enigma, perhaps best left for the younger generations...
..."nearly 2.6 billion users with mobile phones, and close to 10% of them already using the high speed 3G phones. Anyone in the media industries, or running an internet service - needs to know this is the biggest pond, if you are not on mobile, you won't be relevant soon.
"This is the industry to be in. Any service, product, company, brand or entity needs a mobile phone based digital community presence.
"If you are not there, your competitors will be, and you will be crushed. If you are there, this is the place where finally, of internet services, you can earn money. You do not need to wait for some magical level of "eyeballs" to sell advertising.
"The mobile internet is inherently better than the traditional web, because of that very fact - every service is billable, every time your service is used, you get paid. Not to mention it's much bigger than the internet and more addictive and the clear choice of younger users.
"Understand that you can be part of the growth, when the 3.45 Billion turns to over 5 billion next year, and over 8 billion in 2008. Make your millions in it NOW!
"Do not for one moment think, that mobile will be "enough". NO. You HAVE to be multiplatform."
The need to move to social communities on mobile has been clear to me for some time (and focused for me by reading Communities Dominate Brands).
My worry is that media companies are shunting this into a bit of a ghetto, just like they did the internet in its infancy. This should be at the heart of our plans for real and rapid growth.
I believe there are HUGE growth opportunities even in what we think may be mature of declining markets - IF we understand how Generation-C intersects with them.
It's not enough to make old-style offerings on what you might regard as a Gen-C platform - and to a non Gen-C audience!
That is our most pressing challenge. Where is it placed in your strategy?
Thursday, September 28, 2006
From 3Cs to 4Cs
We hear a lot about 3C websites - Content, Community and Commerce.
Communities Dominates Brands (see recommended blogs), discusses 4C solutions: Community, Commerce, Connectedness and Culture.
Oh blimey!
We can simplify this a bit for our purposes: Culture=Content.
However the emphasis on Culture suggests content emerging from the community much more than being broadcast to it.
The connectedness element is all about the way emerging communities are constantly connected through their mobiles. They are able to share, by 'word of mouth', in an extremely fast and powerful way. Flashmobbing is just one example - where large numbers of people are inspired to act swiftly and together.
Successful business models will have to combine the four and allow and celebrate their overlapping - the community creating the culture; the culture dictating our commercial practices, commercial offerings arrived at through community consent; the culture can become a commercial offering etc etc.
These four areas are converging and where they come together you have a business which delivers exactly what its community wants, in the way it wants, in the context it wants.
It won't just fit them really well, it will be the result of their own interaction and labours - it will be them.
And they will be the best marketing for it you ever dreamt of.
Or am I just talking cobblers? Tell me so below. Or have a think about the ways we could strive to create a 4C sweetspot?
Communities Dominates Brands (see recommended blogs), discusses 4C solutions: Community, Commerce, Connectedness and Culture.
Oh blimey!
We can simplify this a bit for our purposes: Culture=Content.
However the emphasis on Culture suggests content emerging from the community much more than being broadcast to it.
The connectedness element is all about the way emerging communities are constantly connected through their mobiles. They are able to share, by 'word of mouth', in an extremely fast and powerful way. Flashmobbing is just one example - where large numbers of people are inspired to act swiftly and together.
Successful business models will have to combine the four and allow and celebrate their overlapping - the community creating the culture; the culture dictating our commercial practices, commercial offerings arrived at through community consent; the culture can become a commercial offering etc etc.
These four areas are converging and where they come together you have a business which delivers exactly what its community wants, in the way it wants, in the context it wants.
It won't just fit them really well, it will be the result of their own interaction and labours - it will be them.
And they will be the best marketing for it you ever dreamt of.
Or am I just talking cobblers? Tell me so below. Or have a think about the ways we could strive to create a 4C sweetspot?
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The rate of change is so rapid it's difficult for one person to keep up to speed. Let's pool our thoughts, share our reactions and, who knows, even reach some shared conclusions worth arriving at?
