hyperempowered

Nicholas Carr on "The Social Graft"

If you're finding it hard not to get caught up in the irrational hype surrounding Facebook's announcements yesterday, Nicholas Carr's blog post today should be a must read. 

Carr puts everything into perspective by concluding his thoughts with the following statement (which I absolutely love):

Facebook, which distinguished itself by being the anti-MySpace, is now determined to out-MySpace MySpace. It's a nifty system: First you get your users to entrust their personal data to you, and then you not only sell that data to advertisers but you get the users to be the vector for the ads. And what do the users get in return? An animated Sprite Sips character to interact with.

You can (and should) read the full article here.

Ag Age Previews Facebook's New Shopping Service

This week Facebook is set to launch a range of new services.  Today, Ad Ages' Abbey Klaasen and Matthew Creamer provide a sneak peek to Facebook's new shopping service:

"The shopping feature, according someone familiar with the work Facebook has been doing in this area, will go something like this: When Facebook members buy something at a commerce site, they can let those in their Facebook networks know about the purchase, passing along information on the item as well as a discount or coupon. The service will bring a sort of easily tracked viral element to online shopping. Two other people described it as part of a larger plan by Facebook that will allow data about Facebookers' online transactions and interactions to circulate within their social graphs. Marketers will be able to plug in to the program, enabling consumer interactions such as purchases to become part of the social network. But these people suggested the program won't be limited to shopping and is just a sliver of the larger announcements Facebook will unveil to marketers during an event in New York on Nov. 6. Facebook declined to comment on the feature."

Why Facebook Is Worth Every Penny Of Its $15 Billion Valuation

The immediate reaction from everyone who I spoke to last week after they heard that Microsoft had invested $240 million for only a 1.6 percent stake in Facebook was that the company, in a desperate effort to catch up with Google, may have made one of the most idiotic overpriced investments of all time.   

And when you consider that Facebook is only bringing in an estimated $150 million in revenue, the investment does - on it's surface - seem completely irrational and does indeed appear to be another indication of a massive Web 2.0 bubble that is about to burst.

But personally, I think Microsoft's investment in Facebook is one of the smartest moves the company has ever made. 

And my rationale for this may not be what you may think.

A $15 billion valuation is absolutely irrational if you view Facebook simply as an incredibly smart and successful web destination where revenues will come from monetizing advertising served up on pages on Facebook.com. Those that are saying the a $15 billion valuation for Facebook is overpriced, are those that are looking at Facebook as a website or a portal. 

And this is where the mistake is made.  Facebook is much more than just a web destination.   Facebook has the ability to eat Google's lunch by beating it at its own game.

Google isn't worth billions because of search.

Search became a lost leader for Google to sell highly targeted contextual ads across the web through its brilliant AdSense advertising platform. 

Now, using the same playbook, Facebook is planning on using Facebook.com as a lost leader to sell highly targeted and contextual ads across the web through its soon to be announced "SocialAds network" that is rumored to officially launch next week on November 6th at Adtech.

Just as AdSense completely transformed  the online advertising world a few years ago, Facebook is poised to transform it once again.   And in doing so, Facebook has the ability to be the one company that truly gives Google a run for it's money.

What does Facebook have that Google doesn't? 

User data.

Unlike Google, Facebook knows a lot about you and me.  They know this based on they types of information that we put into our profiles on Facebook.  Facebook knows where you went to college. It knows weather you consider yourself a liberal or conservative.  It knows what movies and tv shows are your all-time favorites. It knows who your friends are.

Google doesn't know any of this information.

Google knows nothing about us other than what country we're logging in from. 

Facebook knows all about us.

So why is Facebook's valuation of $15 billion far from being overpriced?

From the mere fact that Facebook's SocialAd network will finally deliver what others (including Google) have tried to launch for years but have each and every time come up short - a psychographic based behavioral ad targeting system that follows you from site to site as you navigate across the web. 

As of right now, Facebook has the ability to deliver psychographic based behavioral ad targeting to its current base of 45 million users.  If Facebook continues to scale at its current rate, that user base may well grow to be over 200 million people.   

The value of 200 million users for a psychographic based behavioral ad network?

In a word.

Massive.

Every Time I See This T-Shirt I Start Laughing...

(via)

Facebook User Stats Are Now Available To Everyone

Interested in knowing how many 42 year olds in the United States are using Facebook? (32,240)  Or how many students from Northwestern University are on Facebook? (9,680) 

The most useful thing about yesterday's release of the Flyers Pro platform to the public is that it gives all of us access to dynamic, up to the second, data on tons of stats about Facebook users.  Until now, this information was not easily available to the public. 

Here's some top-line stats from this morning....

As of 8am today, there are 19,951,900 Facebook users living in the United States. 

• The majority are women. (9,778,140 women vs. 8,075,960 men)
• Less then 30% are currently  in college.(5,767,800)
• Just over 24% have  graduated from college (4,680,800)
• Just over 20% are still in high school. (4,148,460)
• Over one half of a million are older than 40 (533,740)
• 8,031,200 are single, 4,818,540 are "in a relationship, 1,859,780 are married, and 605,400 are currently engaged.
• 2,806,500 say they are liberal, 1,937,420 say they are moderate, and 2,181,300 say they are conservative

 

"Why does Facebook work so well?"

Today on his AllFacebook blog, Nick O'Neill does a wonderful job answering the burning question, "Why does Facebook work so well?" 

Here's an excerpt of his answer...

"For those of us that have always been internet evangelists, we have always strived to try to try and perform as much communication as possible on the web. While we still have real world relationships, our virtual ones have not been the same. We have tried to create new systems that help mimic our real lives and the closest that we’ve come so far is ….. Facebook! Facebook allows me to perform most of the communication I need to in close to real time from when my friend laughed at a picture or my favorite blogger wrote a masterful thesis.

The bottom line is that all of these tools are evolving so we can constantly monitor each other and communicate as if we were right there with the person as they go through their life. It makes us feel more connected and strangely enough, it often makes them feel more connected as well....

Facebook helps us to communicate most effectively in this digital world. Simply put. There is currently no better solution. Will something better come along? Maybe but it’s months away not days away. As peoples’ lives migrate online, they are going to need to find the best solution for keeping in touch with all their contacts. Right now, Facebook is that solution."

Can Facebook Beat MySpace As "The Place" For Bands?

If it happens, the popular music service iLike, may be what does it. 

If you're a user of iLike you may not have noticed yet, but this week iLike added a new service specifically for bands and musicians in which they can now create their own branded page which then lives on both the iLike website as well as inside Facebook. 

With over a half of a million people now using the application each and every day, iLike has quickly become one of the most popular apps on Facebook. 

For bands, iLike provides a terrific utility. In addition to providing a platform for social interactions around shows and new releases, one of the key benefits is that with iLike you're no longer limited to a having a maximum of 5,000 "friends."   

You can check out the service for yourself here.

Facebook's (Extremely) Long Tail

Those planning on leveraging Facebook as a marketing platform for clients, should definitely take note of Tim O'Reilly's analysis of the Long Tail Effect of Facebook applications.

While noting that over 5,000 applications have been developed with the most successful ones obtaining tens of millions of installs on individual pages, Tim states that 87% of all usage happens on only 84 applications.

In case you missed that, let me restate it - " 87% of all usage happens on only 84 applications."

In addition, only 45 applications currently have more than 100,000 active users.

As O'Reilly notes, this doesn't necessarily mean that Facebook isn't a terrific platform for new applications, only that we need to manage expectations and realize that simply adding a new app is not a road to success on it's own.

Niches Rule: Reebok Taps User Groups on Facebook

Add Reebok to the growing list of consumer brands who are launching smart and successful strategies on Facebook.

Rather than create a branded running ap for Facebook, Reebok is taking a different route.

As part of their "Run Easy' advertising campaign, Reebok is leveraging Facebook to encourage runners to set up their own running groups on Facebook or join one of hundreds created by other runners just like you and me. 

The amazing thing is that as of this morning, there are over 760 user generated Reekbok branded running groups on Facebook with over 14,000 members. 

Reebok success on Facebook comes from a keen understanding of one thing -  niches matter.

Amongst the 768 Reebok run groups on Facebook are such groups as: "Run for the Lord", "Gotta keep my sexy ass lookin good somehow!!!", "I Run b/c my fatass needs to" and hundreds others.

What Reebok has tapped into is the knowledge that while we  may share an interest in something that has mass appeal, there are an unlimited number of separate subgroups within this mass group.  Open social networks like Facebook allow smart brands like Reebok to not only to aggregate and connect runners together, but to tap into, and most importantly - celebrat - the unlimited amount of diversity and uniqueness that exists amongst the members.

What I like most about what Reekbok is doing on Facebook is that it's so damn simple, yet incredibly effective.  Reebok is tapping into the 35 million people on Facebook to provide a "platform within a platform" for runners to come together and share their experiences, stories, questions, successes, failures...

Breaking Down Facebook Activity for August

More from Compete.com here.