Beside being a Facebook user, are you a blogger? vlogger? Twitter user? Friendfeed? Tumblr?
Have you noticed that Facebook has been sucking interactions with your content from your original source into Facebook feed?
If yes, that’s how Facebook is becoming the skeleton of the Internet.
Facebook has become ubiquitous that people keep staying inside Facebook, expecting to consume information from everywhere. Facebook is doing well to satisfy this need of convenience, allowing information inflow by both implementing functions itself and providing being the platform for respective service provider to develop Facebook applications.
Results:
- Convenience for users
- Explorability of information from the world’s largest hub
- Distribution of interactions from original site to other hubs, notably Facebook
- Facebook ecology is becoming Facebook economy, centralizing human connectedness depicted by social graphs
Anything has its down side. The issues are
- Interactions within original service (Twitter, Tumblr) are always richer in essence than two actions “Comment” and “Like” on Facebook. Twitter has retrievable favorite, retweet; Tumblr has retrievable like, reblog… If people keep using Facebook and neglect the other services, this richness is not utilized to its fullest potentials
- As a result of (1), innovation elsewhere other than Facebook is gradually killed off
- As to fuel destruction of their “complementors”, Facebook has been cloning interesting nice features of elegant services including Twitter, Tumblr and swallowed Friendfeed
As for me, interactions with my Tumblr items by my connections who use both Facebook and Tumblr are now done on Facebook. More “likes” on Facebook, fewer “reblogs” on Tumblr. These posts are read, liked, then dispersed down Facebook stream. They have not been recreated and passed on by being reblogged.
By becoming the main stream of information, Facebook is depressing contents and innovation.
There’s the price publishers pay to distribute information on Facebook. There’s the price other service providers pay to spread contents hosted on them onto Facebook. The price by information consumers residing on Facebook will only be realized when real casualties have been done.
Are you a publisher or a consumer? What do you think?
Addendum
Facebook gives power to the crowd, turns innovators & trend-setters into followers of the consuming herd.
1. Google’s massive free cash flow
When time is right, a dividend would strongly boost GOOG’s stock price, strengthening their confident announcement that crisis was over.
Or a share repurchase might be useful a strategy, especially when they need more innovation.
2. Social Media is not a fad, but an evolution.
But, sub-trends exist. Where’s the opportunity?
“Social media begins to look less social” will be a good sign for ecosystem to grow. Twitter apps, Facebook apps & games for example.
“Corporations look to scale” and they will need tools. Beyond communication, think market research, CRM.
Finance
| 
crm, facebook, google, How Marketing is done, How to better Communication, innovation, market-research, share, social-media, strategy, twitter
Whether content or conversation is king is irrelevant. Content and conversation are means to opportunity.
Content is an excuse to initiate opportunity.
Conversation is an excuse to realize opportunity.
A product/platform is a venue for opportunities.
A good product should push relevant opportunities to its consumers, namely users.
***
Think of contents on social media as information derivatives.
Social Media and Alpha
From the perspective of a funds manager, social media create:
- Information inflow: for alpha capture
- Information outflow: to influence the market
Social Media and Corporate Governance
1. Individual investors have more tools for monitoring the companies they own.
2. Bargain:
Traditionally investors have certain tools in hand to influence the companies: board, proxy fight, external audit, internal audit, credit rating agencies
Social media supplements mass media in strategies in corporate decision, social attitude and regulation bargaining.
The power of Social Media should not be overlooked, as many will be tempted to use these low-cost tools.
Finance
| agency, alpha, audit, bargain, board, corporate-finance, credit, investment, market, proxy, social-media
@anhhung has a nice review on Muffy. He has answered the “What”. This post of mine answers the “Why” of the widget.
Why widgets like Muffy make sense
1. Because ecosystems make sense
After the decomposition of Yahoo! 360, some forces are making their way into the Vietnam market. Most noticeable of all include Facebook as a SNS, WordPress as a blogging platform and Multiply as a hybrid service.
Witnessing their penetration, especially that of Facebook, I wouldn’t lean on any attempt to compete head-on with them.
Instead, as most successful services sweetly position themselves as platforms, the least riskiest option is to build an ecosystem on them.
2. Because addons for blogs make sense
The more we value WordPress as a good blogging platform built by a wise team, the more Vietnamese young bloggers complain about its lack of “fun” features. What these youngsters who make a huge market for advertisers look for are entertainment and hot news. Widgets fill that gap perfectly.
3. Because the selected contents make sense
Vietnamese internet surfers love seeing exhibitionism, comparing rankings and exploring trendy topics. Muffy looks promising that it will serve these needs.
4. Because the widget is monetizably ready
The widget is organized in a way that it is ready for retails, by matching exact sellers & service providers to potentials consumers.
Data can flow bi-directionally. On one side, products are pushed to users as they go online. On the other side, advertisers can collect data about the needs of these users who show-off their consumption needs while they surf.
Simply put, nice and neat for automated retail advertising and market research.
My Recommendations
1. Games & quizzes
2. Peer recommendations. See slide 4 of this presentation for details that back my suggestions.
3. Full-pledged Facebook application
4. Mobile
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