Bringing the Stream to Facebook

I am making a slight shift in my content strategy. My Posterous-powered site will continue to feature insights, observations and essays about emerging technologies. It will include any content - text, photos, videos - where some degree of depth is required. This includes my AdAge and Forbes columns. I have also renamed it the Steve Rubel Stream to better reflect its mission.

Now I am also adding a Facebook Page that will feature everything that's posted here plus exclusive content for those of you who opt in and become a fan. It's very similar to how I approach Twitter - which also features links that I don't always share elsewhere. The difference is that the new Facebook Page will sit in between what I do here and Twitter and hopefully spark a rich discussion from a broader group of people who don't necessarily read blogs or use Twitter. 

Please become a fan today. My initial post asks for input on the pros/cons of creating different content for each social network. As always, if you have thoughts on how I can evolve this I am all ears.

BNO Breaking News Service is Now on Facebook

BNO Breaking News, a service that first made its name on Twitter and was later acquired by MSNBC, is now on Facebook. It just started to syndicate updates into my news feed about Former Vice President Dick Cheney's heart episode. It's great to see this service make its way to Facebook where we can also comment on status updates in line. Hopefully millions more will discover BNO Breaking News as more see Facebook as a source of news.

AP is Visionary: They See a "Siteless Web"

TechCrunch reports that the Associated Press is using their Twitter account to push their followers to their Facebook page. On that hub they syndicate many stories blog posts and dispatches as full text. Unlike Danny Sullivan (here and here), I think this is a downright brilliant and visionary move. What's more it's a natural for a wire service like AP. Here's why.

AP sees that the future of media is headless, which I wrote about here six months ago. Paul Gillin echos my thoughts and calls this the siteless web.

Wire services like AP and Reuters have in one sense flourished since the dawn of the consumer Internet. You can't visit a news site without running into one of their stories. Often, some of the featured and more popular stories on Yahoo News (an underrated news giant) are from wire services. However, there's an inherent problem today with that model and this approach tries to solve it.

As wires like AP and Reuters syndicate their content everywhere, they have struggled to build any kind of meaningful relationship with readers. In some ways they've become so ubiquitous they're commodity. Others, like the New York Times, have done a much better job by offering benefits to registered members - but also with a lot more investment and infrastructure. 

The AP is now changing the game for news by not only going where attention spirals are taking us but by also using their content to curate a conversation on Facebook and - above all - build relationships.

As of this writing, the AP page on Facebook has 9,400 fans. I bet this will grow over time as people spend more time on Facebook and slowly become more accustomed to getting their news there, in addition to friend updates, games,etc. Swap out the word fans and replace it with subscribers and suddenly you can see where I am going and why this is a smart idea. It's CRM for news!

Over the weekend Robert French from Auburn and I have been debating on Google Buzz the value of Facebook as a news source. It does have a ways to go but it's coming. Six years ago, as an experiment, I lived off blogs as my sole news source. I might try that again with Facebook. I continue to be impressed with how media companies are starting to experiment and the utter richness of the conversation that occurs in a very navigable, digestible format.

LATER:: In response to this post, Viki asks on Buzz if I see a similar future for Google Buzz. In a word, yes. With content infinite and attention finite, the media will go where people are. This includes Twitter, Buzz and YouTube. The media is already all over Buzz - case in point, the Huffington Post. However Facebook is the 800 pound gorilla - for now.

Three Ways to Manage Your Attention with Facebook

It took me awhile but I have become a big evangelist for Facebook. It's now my primary source of information. I suspect, from looking at the data, that this is true for millions - although I bet most don't even realize it. Nielsen reports that the average American spends seven hours a month on Facebook - that's staggering when you think about bounce rates and how mission-oriented web users are. (Note - Nielsen is a client.)

The main reason I am digging more into Facebook these days is that, in an age of infinite noise, the site actually helps me manage my attention. What's more it makes it easier for me to connect with streams I care about from brands, news sources and thinkers like Jeremiah Owyang and Om Malik. I also like the richness of the conversation and how it's easy to read, navigate and respond.

Still, as great as Facebook is, the site has its annoyances. You need to dig in a bit to tweak it. Once you do, however, I find it becomes a really powerful way to manage your attention. Here are three ways I am making Facebook rock my world ....

Tune out Inane Updates

First, while games are huge on Facebook, I really don't care about my friends' gaming activity. I am not alone. "I don't care about your farm, or your fish, or your park, or your mafia" has attracted over five million fans. Thankfully, the New York Times today details how you can tune out say Farmville updates from friends...

"On your regular News Feed, you can also weed out the constant updates from any of the farming, organized crime, vampire, space, fantasy or casual games your friends may be playing on Facebook. Just move the mouse cursor to the end of the first line from an update from say, Mafia Wars, and click the Hide button that appears. A box pops up giving you the option to either hide game updates (or the friend) from your News Feed."

Organize Pages Into Lists and Use the Search Box

I have fanned more than 350 pages on Facebook. You read that right. The reason is that I treat Facebook as my primary newsreader. I want to see these updates in my real-time stream. 

Still, if you have fanned more than a few pages, I would recommend setting up lists to make this all manageable. I have set up several lists that I navigate from my phone as well as on the web site. These include lists for client pages and people, news sources/reporters and more. Lists help keep Facebook in check from becoming another source of overload.

Also, don't forget the search box. Often, when all I have time is a a quick scan of the headlines, I head to the box and type in one or more of my favorite sites. This is harder to do on say Twitter. Plus Facebook offers summaries.

Set Your Priorities

In an age of information abundance, quality and signals rule. Still, each individual's definition of what is signal varies. Once you find individuals or pages that add value to your life, you can prioritize them in your feed. Head down to the bottom of your news feed and click on "Edit Options." There you can tell Facebook which people and pages to show more of. 

Right now, this is how I am tracking the Olympics. I have asked Facebook to prioritize updates from four Olympic-related pages that I have fanned. Once the games are over I will turn this off. But for now, it's a great way to keep up with the news.

How are you using Facebook? Are you like me in that you're spending more time on the site or are you in the opposite situation? Share your thoughts in the comments below. Also if you log in with Facebook the comments can be shared on your profile and mine.

Facebook Now Drives More Traffic to Key Sites Than Google

UPDATE: A couple of notes to clarify this post. First, the chart above, which I pulled from compete.com, shows the top sites that Facebook drives traffic to. Also the headline has been updated to reflect that Facebook is driving more traffic to portals than Google. The San Francisco Chronicle story, linked below, notes that Facebook is only starting to encroach on Google for other sites. The trend, however, still holds.

We're at the beginning of a major shift in how we find, consume and interact with information. If the 2000s was the Google decade, then the 2010s will be the Facebook decade. Already, you can see the writing on the wall - pun intended. Case in point: a search for "google decade danny sullivan" pulls up his Facebook note higher than a blog post (an item I wanted to include here for context). But that's nothing. Look at the data.

According to new stats from compete.com Facebook is becoming the web's top source of traffic (link via Jeremiah Owyang on where else, Facebook). The image above is a snapshot I pulled from compete.com. It shows where Facebook is sending traffic...

"According to Web measurement firm Compete Inc., Facebook has passed search-engine giant Google to become the top source for traffic to major portals like Yahoo and MSN, and is among the leaders for other types of sites.

This trend is shifting the way Web site operators approach online marketing, even as Google takes steps to move into the social-media world.

Some experts say social media could become the Internet's next search engine."

That last line is key. I see Facebook starting to look more like Google while Google tries and stumbles at becoming more social. Bing will start to play a central supporting role here. I see Facebook and Bing becoming an "Axis of FTW" that will disrupt Google on every front. (Microsoft is an Edelman client.)

You can already see it coming...

• Titan/Facebook Chat will challenge Gmail in communications


• Facebook pages will disrupt Google - especially if they were to integrate Bing Maps and location technology a la Foursquare. This can quickly position Facebook as the Web's Yellow Pages, an area that Google and Yelp currently dominate


• Facebook will make search more social, allowing it to become annotated and curated. This up-ends Google's core business. It also makes the Facebook self-serve advertising model smarter and more effective as it collects more data about where it sends traffic. This threatens Adwords

Social networking is here to stay. It's where attention spirals are flowing and no one looms larger than Facebook. (Link sharing on Facebook rose 500% in six months.) And while Facebook has plenty of critics and they run into the occasional privacy concerns, I believe that they will dominate the landscape the next few years. In fact, I see them becoming the number one web site in the world in under three years. It could eat the web.

Now a lot could go wrong. It is possible that Facebook will become AOL the sequel. But I don't see it. There's no alternative and the more we put into Facebook the more value we gain from it. This is a different era where vertical integration (e.g. owning and controlling the whole experience) is a major plus, especially if it's elegant and simple. There's too much information and things vying for our attention today. This turns vertical integration and simplicity into a competitive advantage.

So what does this mean? I believe business web sites will become less important over time. They will be primarily transactional and/or for utility. Brands will shift more of their dollars and resources to creating robust presence where people already are and figure out how to activate employees en masse in a way that builds relationships and drives traffic back to their sites to complete transactions. Media companies will do the same - they will be "headless."

Google and search will remain important for years to come. However, what we're seeing is the beginning of big changes where social networking and Facebook will further disrupt advertising, media, one-to-one and one-to-many communications, not to mention search.