LifeInSearch.com

Aiiiiight…I’ve been fucking around on Facebook for a few weeks. I’m pretty sure I *get it* now. I can say with complete confidence that there is something fookin amazing going on over there. It’s strange and creepy in a big-brother-is-your-friend kinda way, but I have the distinct feeling that Facebook is going to become the defacto social networking site of the very near future.

Inspired by the research endeavors of Sugarrae and Graywolf, I signed up a few weeks ago and before long, I was caught up in the midst of a highschool reunion. Ex-girlfriends, old drinking buddies, childhood friends, family members, even complete strangers started creeping out of the woodwork asking me to be their friend. I found myself visiting the profiles of friends and their friends and their friends. I would read the messages on their wall, check out their photos, interests, etc. There is something strangely stalkeresque about the Facebook. Incidently, witnessing the facebook virus take hold of so many people (myself included) in so little time was one of the most interesting things I have seen in some time.

Then I started to look at Facebook from a marketing perspective. The Facebook demographic is a marketers dream and like any other form of social media…it’s just a matter of time before people start searching for a way to game it. Then I learned about Flyers from a friend. To quote the Facebook: “Why spend time posting paper flyers around campus, when you can post a Flyer on Facebook? Facebook Flyers are a great way to advertise something to your school and other schools. Also, you can use Facebook Flyers to post announcements for your friends on their special days.”

The beautiful thing about flyers is that you can embed links in them. Current costs are pretty low, so there is literally no barrier to entry; 2500 impressions for $5USF. I’m planning to do some testing soon, and I will be sure to report back later. It would be nice if I wasn’t limited in my flyer posting to a specific school or campus. I would love to be able to post a flyer on the wall of…say…a group I am a member of…or to all my friends.

As I dug into Facebook, I learned a few interesting tidbits of information. My homeboy Rmay blogged about some of the issues surrounding information security and privacy not long ago. He makes some interesting observations and a number of other people have since raised similar concerns. Did you know that the Facebook has ownership of all the images you have uploaded?

Did you know that your profile, by default, is available to the general public? Did you know that the Facebook has released their development platform so web dev types can create cool new tools, features and mini-apps. Did you know that, unless you choose to opt out (click My Privacy), the Facebook is sharing your personal information with that same development community? Did you know that the Facebook is also a mobile app? Did you know that the Facebook has ties to the intelligence community?

I think I am seeing an information revolution in the works over at the Facebook. I think Yahoo will look back at 2007 and their failure to acquire the Facebook as one of the greatest missed opportunities of this decade. They were apparently in talks to purchase the Facebook for a very reasonable price and the deal fell through. Then the fools bought MyBlogLog for 10 million! What they failed to understand is that the Facebook is the next Wordpress. The Facebook is about to become, to social media, what Wordpress became, to blogs.

With this in mind, and having the MySpace experience to look back upon, how long will it be before some crafty marketer develops widgetized monetized blog bling for social media sites developed on the Facebook platform? How much longer will it be before the Facebook opens up it’s network to blog bling and widgets the way MySpace did? If you’re still reading this, you might be interested in the video posted below. It is an academic presentation made at the GooglePlex by a fellow named Fred Stutzman, entitled “Our Lives, Our Facebook”. Very interesting stuff, indeed!