Has Facebook Misunderstood The True Value of It’s Information?

Facebook’s continual attempt to “open” up people’s information is, I think, I gross miscalculation on the meaning of a persons “social network.” It’s not really about privacy of the individual it’s about privacy of our network of friends and family.

I am on Facebook and I like it. I will not however, connect as a “friend” with someone I have never and likely never will, actually meet. I ignore these requests, for business I use LinkedIn or I may connect via my Twitter. To get to know you better first. The mayor of my city made a “friend request” and while I’m sure he’s a very nice guy, I just don’t know him. I’m not a friend. Maybe someday I will be. Then I’ll include him.

The point is, Facebook is about a persons “network”, or who they work with, family and well, actual friends with whom there is a social or emotional connection.  That connection may have started 25 years ago in high school or a year ago at a function and well, you just connected.

We already know that we can not possibly be friends with everyone. Nor do people want to be. This is where Facebook has entirely missed the point of social networks in the sense of “social networks” and in fact, I will submit, that by trying to expand, falsely, a persons “social network” beyond people they really want to connect with, they are significantly diluting the value of their data to marketers. Since there is no longer a “true” representation of a persons network. It ruins the “data set” and dilutes it.

Facebook adds significantly more value by looking at “network effects” of people and will be able to draw much better conclusions and provide much better resale information (in aggregate) to buyers and advertisers than opening things up too much.

Keeping privacy rights at the forefront is actually in Facebook’s better financial interest. The more they try to open things, the worse they actually make their offering.

Manging privacy better is in fact, in Facebooks broader financial interest in my opinion.

What do you think?

(Author: G. Crouch, CEO)

Social Media Is A Freekin’ Mess

After three years of analyzing Web and Social Media behaviour and engagement for clients and reading many other reports like those of PEW Internet, Forrester etc., I’d like to formally state that Social Media is a total and utter mess.

It’s just a messy place. In terms of information, both useful and not. Because it’s very hard to define what is or isn’t useful.

Just look at blogging platforms alone; there’s over 300 blogging platforms out there (i.e. Blogger, WordPress, TypePad) and then there’s the search engines for blogs…Google’s blog search, IceRocket and Technorati among the leaders. Recently when we looked at the results our system brought back from Google and compared them to IceRocket, we found Google had an average of 62.4% more spam and unrelated content than IceRocket and don’t get me started on Technorati.

Think Twitter is the only Microblog? It’s not. There’s over 170 different microblogging services being used. Think Facebook is the only Social Networking service? Yup, you guessed it. There’s over 40 of those and their fragmenting everyday.

Then there’s aggregator services that enable you to share all your information or suck it up into one place. Google’s Buzz is a kind of aggregator combined with participation.

All of this to say; Social Media is a massive tangle of data.

It’s not information until you can make sense of it. There are a number of “reputation management” tools out there that enable some form of aggregation of the data into information, but so far none have proven overly useful.

There’s nothing wrong with this messy place called Social Media. It’s part of the progress. It’s wonderful because ideas are being shared, new approaches being developed towards a better world and well, that’s good.

It’s just  a messy, unmanaged mess right now. And it likely will be for a while yet. This creates a nightmare for marketers, PR pro’s, businesses, government and the average citizen.

To me, Social Media will evolve to more simple systems. Such complexity is not sustainable.

What do you think?

(Author: G. Crouch, CEO)

Will Facebook Fail Over Privacy Issues?

No, I doubt it. That’s the short answer. Yes, nearly a million people have “quit” Facenook recently with the new privacy rules and the advent of the “I like it” button being added to the service. But they have over 400 million active users worldwide. Losing a few million, and likely they will, is just not enough to worry about at that size. A few hundred thousand is a blip on the “churn rate” for a month. That’s it. If that even.

One group of aspiring entrepreneurs has raised over $100K to build a more “private” alternative to Facebook and will likely see some business if they can execute. Diaspora says they’ll launch in late summer or early fall. This is the democracy of the Web at work – if you don’t like something, there’s a way to build the alternative.

If reports start to come out that 10, then 20, then 50 million are leaving, I suspect they’ll start to be concerned. But the fact is, we’ve heard these privacy and usage fear stories before. As the Internet began to see popularity in the mid-90′s and the .com bubble started to expand bigger than a Hubba Bubba bubble gum bubble, news stories ran constantly about all kinds of dangers; fraud, luring, lurking. We warned against so many different societal threats. Today, we’ve all learned to delete those emails from some poor sod in Upper Rubber Boot Africa who needs to get to their dead uncle’s millions and only you can help…well, hopefully you’ve figured that out.

Here we are, 15 or so years later. The Web keeps growing and more people keep signing on. This I think, says at a broader social level – people want to connect, create and communicate. Despite the dangers.

Chat rooms, IM services, newsgroups, forums…those early “Web 2.0″ tools, still exist and are as popular as ever. Privacy commissioners may write letters of concern to Facebook…but people still log on. Daily. By the many millions.

If governments step in in a larger way, Facebook may be forced to make changes. But at the end of the day, Facebook has also enabled people to clamp down their profiles. It’s not easy, but it’s doable. Like many things in life, we sometimes have to take responsibility for our own actions and work at things.

Just like the Web is not going away, quite the opposite, so Facebook isn’t going away. Services like Diaspora will come into being, people will learn to better manage their privacy. These are new social rules we’re writing as a society. In the meantime, Facebook is not about to collapse.

Here’s a great 2 min video by Huffington Post on managing your privacy settings.

(Author: G. Crouch, MD)

Bringing Social Media & TV Together? Yes. Soon.

Although they aren’t launched yet, Starling.tv could be a game changer technology. They’re about to bring broadcast TV to Social Media and Social Media to TV. Exactly how we don’t know yet (though a chat with someone there left me grinning from ear to ear.)

I’m sure many of you reading this article have “tweeted” about the Olympics while watching, or a hockey game or footise or added a comment on Facebook or MySpace about a TV show you’re watching, have watched or are about to watch. Am I right?

So, the concept of Social Television is today, rather amorphous and undefined, but people are trying to make it happen. From our research we think this is closer than many think. Today, the platforms are fairly distinct.

But take for example MTV and MuchMusic with their channels that show txt messages from viewers and use txting voting to vote up a selection of videos. This isn’t just for the benefit of the audience; it tells MTV what’s hot and helps for radio play and lineups on other shows etc.

A whole conference on this topic took place in London this past March. There are hundreds of bloggers talking about it. And then there’s Boxee, enabling you to bring Social Media onto your television set.

Don’t be surprised if one day in a few months from now, you’re “tweet” or “like” from Facebook pops across a screen bottom of the show you’re watching.

So;

1. Will it make us tune back more into television to see if our tweet makes it there or our friends are hanging there?

2. Will we want to connect with social networking capabilities on NBC, BBC or CBC if we see others there who like the same shows?

3. Will TV finally have a new way of driving ad revenues or will it be micro-payment subscriptions?

What do you think?

The Board, Governance & Social Media

Is it really that important for a board of directors to understand Social Media? It is today. They don’t need to understand how to use Twitter or the tiny details of Facebook. But what they do need to understand is a) how people use Social Media and b) how it can affect a large, mid-cap or small-cap public company or even privately held company.

Why?

Here’s a look at how activity can impact a public company, board governance and strategic direction (which is what a board is responsible for.)

1. Directors Liability: A crisis, such as JetBlue or the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico currently underway, can lead to huge public discussion online. Citizens can use Social Media tools to organize protests and gather information which can be used in litigation and puts members of the board in a liability suit situation. During and after a crisis, monitoring Social Media channels can help counsel better assess risk and potential outcomes.

2. Union Organizing: Unions are making very good use of Social Media tools. A board not paying attention to Social Media channel chatter may be blindsided by a rallying attempt at their company. One that they could have been aware of and prepared for.

3. Whistleblower Crises: It may be that a whistleblower starts placing information in select channels, such as a blog, that could lead to threats of congressional hearings or legislative changes. A whistleblower can quickly build community.

4. Legislative Impact: Groups opposed to a company’s activity (i.e. oil sector) can use Social Media tools to build potentially damaging evidence against a company. This can result in citizen connecting with their legislative or elected officials with the result of legislation that stops the company in its tracks on a proposed project.

5. Stock Price Volatility, Insider Trading Claims Etc.: An employee may post in a blog (intentionally or accidentally) information that could lead to a sell-off or drive a sudden hike in price and buy activity resulting in an SEC investigation. It may lead to board changes or the need for board members to actively engage in reputation management and public statements. It may also lead to insider trading charges and more.

There are more than these five, but they are key issues that a board may need to understand in terms of governance and strategic direction. Social Media has already impacted the board of JetBlue with their crisis a few years ago and there are likely other examples.

The challenge is that in over 90% of these companies with such board structure, it is likely the board is of the upper end of the boomer generation and may not grasp the effects of these technologies in many cases and suspect they’re only used by “youth” who couldn’t rally to impact a company. This can be a deadly mistake.

(Author: G. Crouch, MD)