When protecting data about a user base with high level of secrecy is the norm of any industry, why is Facebook willing to share details about its users. What does Facebook stand to gain? Well the guys who found Facebook are after all not dumb right!
The benefits that Facebook stands to gain can be classified into short term and long term. We will look into the short term benefits in this post.
Short term benefits
A strong eco-system – As more and more sites embrace Facebook it stands to gain from the eco-system of applications that are built around it. The success of iphone is due to the applications that were built around it, Mozilla dominates the browser market despite presence of heavy weights like internet explorer and chrome exactly for the same reason. Now with a new web eco-system built around Facebook it will virtually stamp its presence everywhere.
Content aggregator - Currently More than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month. When the like button was released Mark said that he expected 1 billion likes to be shared on the site within just 24 hours of launch and this number is likely to swell by each passing hour.
More user engagement – As more information is shared on the wall by its customer it will lead to a higher user engagement. The more the time users spend on the wall the better it is for Facebook. There will also be frequent returning visitors as users will be checking updates are available on the wall more frequently and more regularly.
Better brand recall – With a single stroke Facebook will all of a sudden be visible on all the websites and applications. Facebook already had 250,000 sites that were using Facebook connect and within a week of the F8 announcement another 50,000 sites have added Facebook plugins. As a brand what more can you ask for?
Membership boost – Not to forget the growth it will fuel for the giant social networking site. With all the branding and hype created and ease of signing up with any site it will not be long before every granny and nanny will become a member of the Facebook site.
Knows your mind map – This also helps to track its user behavior as to what the the tastes and likes of a user are. In essence all your browsing habits are now available with Facebook. All of a sudden all the bands and brands you like, all your shopping and weekend plans are now known to Facebook. Throw a bit of artificial intelligence and Facebook knows your entire mind map.
This is part 2 of the Facebook analysis. Part 1 - http://techbites.posterous.com/facebook-like-the-new-evil
No comments:
Post a Comment