The Two Faces of Facebook

The following is also my Adage column this week

The Two Faces of Facebook

I spend a lot of time gazing into a crystal ball that I know is going to be cloudy half the time. Lately I have been pondering Facebook's future.

Facebook is clearly on a roll and is knocking on Google's door as the biggest site on the web. Will it continue to dominate or see its lead slip? Here are two potential outcomes.

The Google Scenario

In the more rosy picture Facebook remains the disrupter. It transforms how we use the web.

Just as search changed our expectations that everything we want to know is accessible if we Google it, Facebook is the inverse. If information is important, it will find us through our friends and their friends and so on. We don't have to Google it.

'Trends from friends' is as tranformative as search. The more we use Facebook and the more we create and connect there, the smarter it gets in realizing what we need and when. We don't have to ask.

The opportunity cost of switching to an alternative is simply too great. This is why millions remain wih the same IM network they first tried years ago.

Facebook, like Google, groks data. And they know how to study and use it to make the experience and value grow with every status update, photo, connection and interaction. Once they get serious about search - and consumers see the value in using it for finding curated information - Facebook's value and power could grow.

The AOL Scenario

It's hard to believe but ten years ago AOL was once dominant. It was a hit with advertisers. Publishers paid for position and built grand palaces. It was the place to be. It was also a walled garden. Sound familliar? This begs the question: could Facebook follow the same path? Possibly.

Through continuous innovation Facebook is trying not to become AOL. That's the smart play. However each successive update has irked consumers. The revamped news feed, which rolled out last week, is just the latest.

So far we keep coming back; but you have to wonder if a social network has nine lives. It's possible fickle consumers will eventually migrate elsewhere.

Where might they turn? Just as with AOL they'll go everywhere. The entire web is becoming social. Facebook Connect is a play to make this happen on their terms. However this is where Google, Yahoo and other stalwarts could shine. They already control millions of IM and email address books and have lots of data

So which mask wil Facebook don - Google's or AOLs? My bet right now is Google's.

Chart: Newspaper Circulation - the Last Two Decades

via theawl.com

Fascinating look at newspaper circulation over the last 20 years. Handy for PowerPoints should you need it.

The Next Great Social Network? Your Address Book

This morning I logged into YouTube and I noticed that it now helps me find me find videos and channels from friends who have linked their Google contact information to their social profiles. Meanwhile yesterday Google rolled out its social search program (which so far I like). And recently Google Reader too became a lot more social. So the Gmail address book/contact list is finally showing that it can be a powerful tool for connecting you to your social connections. This is something we saw coming.

Here's what I love about this... 

First, because I have lived in Gmail the last five years, there's loads of data in there that can make social networking even more powerful. Google will do a lot to mine these connections. This is just the beginning. But third parties will assist too. I love what Remail is doing by helping me easily find emails from contacts on my iPhone - even when I am offline.

Second, its agnostic. Google doesn't care which social network you join. If a user links their profile to their social graph, Google will hep you harness it.

Finally, I like that you're in complete control. If you don't want people to be able to search your Flickr photos, make them private and do not connect them to your Google Profile.

However, here's the big question - will consumers set up their Google profiles? And, if they do, will they link them to their social networks? If they are tech adept, yes, they will. But what about the rest of us? I am not so sure. This has to get as easy and as elegant to use as Facebook.

Watch for Google, and perhaps Yahoo and AOL, to make a big push in this direction in the coming months. Google will start promoting Profiles heavily and on its spartan home page so that they can get smarter about social networks. And Facebook, meanwhile, will do the same by encouraging more sites to use Facebook Connect so that, over time, they can help you search the annotated web as filtered by your friends.

How to Bring Back the Old Facebook Feed

On Facebook a lot of my friends are lamenting last week's switch to the new new news feed. (It's now split: the news feed shows trends from friends while the live feed is real-time.) Personally, I like the change. You can pick one. You're not forced.

Still, if you want the old Facebook back, you can get it- sorta - via this tip which a friend left on my wall...

"To get the "old facebook" back. On your main screen, on your left hand side click 'more' then click and drag 'status update' to the top of the list. Then refresh your page and it should be back to normal."

Easy enough.

Ruud Hein on Geocities' Closure

Rudd Hein on GeoCities' closure:

"There are, I believe, two reasons why the Geocities model failed in popularity. And I say Geocities but I could also say Blogger or LiveJournal…

One, we don’t want to built web sites, easy page makers or not. Making new pages, figuring out where or how to add them to the navigation – not cool.

Two, audience. Family and friends we proudly told about our site came once. Then the incentive was gone and they didn’t come anymore."

Good insights on how the web evolves. Online communities to date have been a cyclical business. Consumers are fickle. GeoCities didn't make the turn and the same may happen one day to Twitter and Facebook. However, there's nothing right now on the horizon it seems. So it might be awhile before we see a new class emerge.