Broken Guru

If I Built a Facebook Phone…

So the tech-blogosphere is filled (once again) with stories that Facebook are trying to get their phone project off the ground. Rumours abound that they’re trying to snatch up as much iOS talent as possible with their newly-minted IPO windfall.

Much of the discussion is centred around the question of whether or not Facebook actually need to develop a phone at all, and whether it’s simply an eye-for-an-eye reaction to Google’s activity; “Well Google have built a Social Network - let’s build a phone”.

In my opinion, a Facebook phone is the next obvious evolutionary step for Facebook in its long-term strategy. The question is, however; is now the right time for that evolution?

So what is Facebook’s long term strategy? And how, and importantly when, does a phone fit into that strategy? I should probably open this with a disclaimer that these are my own views and may not actually be representative of Mark Zuckerburg’s long term plans and so forth and yada yada. It’s just the way that I see the situation.

Firstly, I’ve mentioned in an earlier post that I believe that Facebook sees its position within the developing Web as so much more than a Social Media platform. Facebook is attempting to redefine the way the web is indexed. Open Graph is Facebook’s Google killer, or so they hope. They’re attempting to hack the entire web and re-shape it with the user at the heart of the experience. It’s a neat idea, to be honest, and I honestly hope that they succeed.

Beyond that however, it all gets little bit hazy. But if you’ll let me look into my crystal ball I can give a little bit of insight (or guesswork) on what the future for Facebook could look like.

Let’s take the re-indexed web as a given. It’s happened and we’re comfortable with it. We’re pretty much there, to be honest. We comment on articles using from our Facebook profile, we like video content, we pretty much express any opinion online with Facebook as our anchor. As you can see, our online experience is being indexed from our Facebook profile. If this is the case, then our profile is actually only the front-facing hub that collates all our activity.  So the value of Facebook is not what’s going on at your profile URL, but all the activity and information that is being passed across Open Graph.

Which brings me on to why I don’t believe that Facebook are considering launching a “branded” phone. There’s absolutely no point in them doing that, in fact, it would be like them launching a range of hatchbacks. 

The value in launching a Facebook phone is actually in mobilising the Facebook OS. By indexing the web in the aforementioned way, Facebook have actually managed to develop an OS without, well, actually developing an OS. There has been much written on Facebook as a walled garden. I’d ague that what Zuckerburg is actually doing is building walls around the Web, and is currently attempting to serve Larry Page an eviction notice.

But why stop at re-indexing the Web alone? A Facebook mobile would actually allow Facebook to extend their reach beyond online. If they got it right, they could harness countless emerging mobile features (NFC, image prompted browsing etc) and implement a FB mobile as a touchpoint for Open Graph interaction with physical things. I’m talking signing into your car, your television, hell, even your toaster and sharing relevant metadata. Now, before people start complaining about over-sharing, one of Facebook’s biggest challenges will be in mastering what I call Selective Sharing. You don’t need to share diagnostic data from your car with the guy you met in Malia last summer, but you would want to share it with your garage. Equally you may want to connect and share metadata from your TV with friends watching The Apprentice at the same time as you, but you wouldn’t want to share that with Dave who “BLOODY HATES THE APPRENTICE”.

Facebook currently has an approach to sharing that is too broad, and Edgerank’s algorithm needs a lot of fine tuning. Until then, any thought of mobile development will be too reactionary. Mobile development has a small margin, high volume product development cycle, and Facebook’s hacking culture is almost totally at odds with this. But if implemented as part of a staggered, long term strategy, empowered by iOS experts who can bring a different approach to product development cycles, then early stage concerns over Facebook’s faltering IPO could prove to be an amusing anecdote within the unequalled long-term surge in Facebook’s share price saga.

Is Facebook’s Agressive Approach to Ubiquity in the User’s Best Interest. Or monopolistic?

General Motors has just pulled it’s $10 million dollar Facebook Ads budget. That’s some pretty worrying news for those following the social network’s IPO.

It’s sparked a fair amount of press, which of course it would at such a critical time for both investors and founders, and a flurry of “What could kill Facebook” themed articles.

Ultimately this will, I’m sure, fade into the distance and be looked back upon as an inconvenient bump in the road. Facebook’s value will hit the rumoured £63 billion mark and will continue to grow as the social platform of the next however many years.

Every so often a embryonic platform gains some traction, and media-types start to whisper that Splatdesk or Twintwang (or whatever non-sensical name the next start-up calls itself) could be the platform to topple Facebook from its position at the top of the social pile. And I will pay no attention.

Facebook isn’t just sitting at the top of the pile. It’s becoming the pile. Mark Zuckerburg has a very clear vision for Facebook. He wants it to become the “Life OS”. In some ways, it seems that he sees Facebook as Internet Part II. Not Web 2.0 - that was just an update. If Zuckerburg gets his way, Facebook will redefine not just digital interactions, but the way we interact with the world. Cars could be built with native integration to the Open Graph, whereby you check into your car with your phone and share diagnostic data with your garage over Facebook. Scan your shopping items in the supermarket with your Facebook phone, and advertisers could gain access to your physical purchase journeys. That phone could then share data with digital billboards for targeted ads on the high street. It’s both damned scary and damned exciting.

And I think that Facebook’s acquisition strategy fully backs this up. Instagram got big enough to possibly, eventually compete with Facebook? Buy it up, Mark. Pinterest? Don’t be surprised to see the same thing happen. Entrepreneurs know the exit strategy before they’ve even started. Build it up, Mick, then sell it to Mark. It’s a model that’s proving to work.

So should we be worried about the Facebook monopoly? Maybe. But then we were’t worrying about the internet having a monopoly on data. And it does. Obviously the internet isn’t owned by anyone and is a totally open-source, free market. But it’s kind of the same thing. Facebook’s ubiquity is, in my opinion, the next organic evolution in the life-cycle of the web. You can fight it about as much as you can fight a tsunami. And my advice would be don’t fight it. Grab a board, and prepare for the ride of your life.    

Some Pinteresting Thoughts…

I’m a man.

And I love Pinterest. Why?

It’s beautifully designed

Pinterest is just a pleasure to explore. That was immediately obvious from the first minute of exploration. What I like to call the “user comfort zone” - the point you reach where you intuitively know how and which navigation routes to take in order to maximise your enjoyability of any given site - came very quickly. This is largely down to the simplicity of the concept - it’s fundamentally about image curation. It is absolutely a Social platform - but the Social-factor is predominantly driven by sourcing further images for curation. Connections happen organically through the curation process, and it works particularly because you don’t need to know anyone on Pinterest to engage with it. It’s totally open social sourcing. It has absolutely bypassed G+syndrome - where if none of your friends are on the platform it seems barren and empty.

It’s also affected the way I browse the web and view my RSS reader. It took some time to train myself to think about what I wanted to share over Facebook - what my friends, many of whom couldn’t give a rat’s arse about Digital and Media innovation, would find interesting - I’m not even sure if I’ve found the right balance, as I only have a small pool of regular sharers, commenters, and likers.

Pinterest is different - if I like it I pin it - and there seems to be an incredibly high interaction levels with all of my pins. There’s some great data analysis from RJ Metrics

Broken Promises (and False Horizons)

I falsely heralded my return in my last post.

I’m sorry - it was wrong. I’m ashamed. Having assumed that I would have a period of professional down-time where I could commit to re-establishing this blog, I suddenly became inundated with consultancy work.

THe universe tends to work a bit like that. Just when you think something will happen, something else will blind-side you and set you on a totally separate course.

This was something that  I used to fight. An overpowering desire to assert my self-will over cosmically pre-ordained situations would result in a futile battle with uncontrollable variables, where only one combatant would come off worse - me.

It got me pretty depressed. Panicked that things weren’t going my way, I’d double my efforts to assert my self-will - resulting in double the trauma and double the strife. As a result, I made myself unwell.

As a result, I spent some serious time searching for a way to get myself out of this self-imposed funk. After a number of wild-goose chases, I stumbled upon Buddhism, and it has honestly changed my life.

I’ve learnt to accept the things that I can’t change, and found the courage to change the things that I can in a non-combative, (hopefully) serene manner.

In a rather twee and roundabout way, it’s an approach that can be applied to Social Media Planning. No matter how much in-depth planning and strategy you embark on, things never go 100% the way you planned. You have to be agile and prepared to adjust your strategy, to adjust to the changing nature of platforms and the way that users interact with them.

Try too hard to assert your strategy on users who are unwilling to listen, and you’ll not only negate engagement, but you’ll likely lose them forever. Failure to adapt will result in failed engagement, and as we all know, poor brand relations can be the hardest of hurdles to overcome.

While writing this I’ve just remembered The Zen of Social Media Marketing - a great resource for any Social Communications Professional.

Anyway, I’m off to go meditate. Or sleep. I’m not sure which is which yet…

Guess who’s back, back again…

I’ve been away for a while.

Terribly busy of course - saving seals, rescuing princesses and developing a cure to the common cold. You know - the usual stuff.

But I’m back, with a new vigour and a new joie de blogging. While I’ve been away I’ve learnt some stuff. Largely, that stuff has shown me how little I know. But I’ll continue to pretend like I know everything. It’s just how I roll.

My eyeholes have just seen that Tumblr has improved its Facebook sharing. It has an exclamation mark at the end of the statement - so it must be awesome. I’m going to have a look-sees. 

Toodles.

Broken Guru

+1 Button to appear on display ads…

So, the +1 button continues its march to ubiquity with the announcement that the “Like Killer” will appear on Google’s Display Network as of Tuesday.

“As we explained in our initial announcement several weeks ago, we believe that incorporating personal recommendations into display ads has the potential to change the way people view advertising,” Dan Friedman, AdWords product marketing manager, wrote on the company’s Inside AdWords Blog. “A display ad becomes much more powerful when people can see which of their friends and contacts have chosen to endorse it.”

It might just be me, but I can’t ever imagine +1ing any display ad. Unless it was stupendous. Oh, I forgot, I run Ad Blocker anyway. Oh well…

Vintage Apple Ads - Retro or just plain weird?