Still Working Out the Kinks with Facebook Connect
Remember when I said Yelp had Facebook Connect all figured out? Well, it seems they haven’t quite squashed all the bugs yet. The biggest problem (yes, beyond the triplicate mini-feed stories) is that these are the reviews I chose not to publish to Facebook. If Yelp and Facebook don’t get this under wraps soon, this has the potential to be a second coming of the Facebook Beacon engagement ring scandal.
Trust And Betrayal In Social Media
Seth Godin wrote recently about the intersection of trust and privacy in the new media age. Godin’s a lot more paranoid than most of us, but he goes so far as to sign all his emails “This note is off the record (blogs, too) unless we agree otherwise.” He makes the complementary (and more significant) point, however, that you only have to betray someone once before they’ll be much more reluctant to trust you again.
Go to a party and take embarrassing pictures of your friends to post on Facebook. That’s fun, certainly, but it’s possible that you won’t be quite as trusted next time.
Take that email your boss sent to the six people in your group and post it anonymously to some web gossip site… wanna bet your boss is a lot more careful about telling you and your peers the truth next time?
The good news is that we all need to act as if we’re on camera… behavior ought to improve. The bad news is that it’s harder to trust people we might have expected to be more discreet or engaged.
If you think you can write something or post a photo or video online these days and have any semblance of privacy, you’re delusional. It’s absurd to me that there are still a few Virgin Atlantic flight crew members and a Patriots cheerleader who haven’t figured this out yet, not to mention the University of Texas football player recently suspended for a blatantly racist and threatening Facebook status update.
Mike Proulx recently coined the term “citizen paparazzi” to refer to the fact that we all could be on someone else’s camera or Flip cam at any moment. Bono learned this the hard way recently, when photos of him with a couple of 19 year old girls were posted on one of the girls’ Facebook profiles, and then reposted elsewhere.
Bono didn’t post these pictures on Facebook himself — someone else took them. They were controversial because he’s married, and the girls were 19, but that’s not the issue at hand. At what point do we no longer have any freedom to act as we see fit within the privacy of our own homes (or mega-yachts)?
What do real celebrities do in the face of the real paparazzi? (And to be clear, I’m not talking about the Lindsays and Parises who will do anything for attention.) They hide — behind huge sunglasses, gated mansions, and their agents. No one really knows who these people are — every public appearance is carefully planned and utterly sanitized. I have to wonder if there will be a backlash now that the potential for the same kind of uninvited publicity is ever-present in the lives of us regular folk.
Will social media eventually force us all to become more anti-social?
The Power of Real Names
One of the biggest contributions Facebook made to the social media was to enforce the use of your real name. On Facebook, Twitter, and anywhere else you might find me, I’m still Jamie Scheu. On MySpace you can still be known only as SK8erBoi23 or *~*GLiTTeRgUrL88*~*, and that’s ok — frankly, many people don’t want to use their real names on the MySpace anyway (for privacy reasons). But there’s something to be said for the authenticity and most of all accountability that comes from having to stand behind your words and actions with your real name. This simple distinction fundamentally alters the culture of any social platform.
Then again, you wouldn’t want Facebook to get too real…
New Hampshire Goes Viral: A Testament to True Fandom
Update: I just discovered that this story made news at the Concord Monitor, completely unbeknownst to us at Brand Networks.
About a week ago, a couple of industrious colleagues of mine at Brand Networks decided to perform an experiment in the organic viral growth of a Facebook Page. Of all the things in the world to become a fan of, what did they pick? The state of New Hampshire. (They’re UNH grads, and as a former Vermonter I can understand the love for northern New England states).
They seeded the page with some content: a few photos, NH news via RSS, a link to NH tourism, etc. All very general stuff — no slick interactive Flash, not even a scenic primary picture. Then they sat back and did nothing.
What happened? The Page blew up. Once it gathered some momentum, it grew at a rate of over 50 fans per hour, to over 5,000 in less than a week. You could sit there and refresh the page and watch the fan count climb. And it’s still growing.
Not only that, but the fans are engaged. A community is being born right before our eyes. 249 fan photos have been uploaded as I write this. 161 posts have been made across six discussion threads. Seven people have posted items such as events and links. 64 people have written on the wall.
There was no media support behind this page, just pure, raw viral growth. Sears is paying users $5 just to become a fan of their page, never mind actually engage with the content. Why does Sears have to spend $50,000 to get 10,000 fans, when New Hampshire is already 60% of the way there after one week? Here are some reasons I would argue as to why “New Hampshire” went viral:
The obvious: the built-in viral tools within Facebook provide social proof. This one’s true for all applications, pages, and groups in Facebook. If you’re from New Hampshire, and you see on your News Feed that five of your friends have become fans of New Hampshire, you’re more likely to consider doing so as well.
The not-so-obvious: the complement to the first point is that if you’re from New Hampshire, odds are pretty good that many of the your friends (i.e. the people that see your feed updates) are from New Hampshire as well. They are notified when you become a fan, and the message inherently gets to the right people.
And finally: the main graphic for the page is a simple green outline of the state — boring to some, but effective. Why? Because New Hampshire means different things to different people. There’s a nostalgic element to “becoming a Fan of New Hampshire” that is different for everyone. It’s the same reason that true community is more likely to “happen” in venues that are less than inspiring.
What’s the big take-away here (or as Chris Brogan would say, what’s in it for me?)? There are plenty of ways to go wrong, but here’s a pretty good idea of how to go right: take a step back from pushing your marketing messaging, and then get involved the broader conversations that are going on around your brand. As someone said to me succinctly yesterday, if you’re selling tennis shoes, talk to your consumers about tennis. This New Hampshire page is a tiny example, but could easily be a community for Smuttynose Brewery, or Waterville Valley Resort – this is a deeply engaged audience with a demonstrated interest in the broader category. Find me a brand wouldn’t want to be able to interact with their consumers on this level.
Yelp: Facebook Connect Done Right
I wrote about Facebook Connect last week, in terms of what the platform needs from brands and developers in order to succeed. I skipped right over what this platform actually looks like in practice, so I’ll take a step back and do that now.
I discovered that Yelp was Facebook Connect-enabled completely by accident. I use Yelp all the time for restaurant and business reviews, but rarely write reviews myself (I guess I’m a freeloader). I wrote one last week for the best tailor in Greater Boston, and was pleasantly surprised when a Facebook Connect dialogue box popped up in the bottom right-hand corner of my screen.
This instance of Facebook Connect was executed flawlessly — subtle and completely opt-in. If I hadn’t noticed this option to publish my review to my Facebook mini-feed, I could have gone on browsing around Yelp like I usually do. Back in Facebook, here’s what showed up in my mini-feed for my 500+ friends to see:
So this is what Facebook Connect looks like in action. Here’s why it works for Yelp:
- It’s discreet. This isn’t an in-your-face dialogue that takes over your screen. If you don’t notice it or choose to ignore it, no harm done.
- It’s optional. It’s not an “extra step” in the process of quickly submitting a review to Yelp.
- I didn’t need to log in to Facebook again. Yelp’s implementation of Connect recognized that I was already logged in to Facebook itself and did not force me to authenticate a second time.
- The content is something I would actually want my Facebook network to see. I had just given the tailor in question a 5-star review — of course I’d want to share this with as many people as possible.
- Yelp takes a back seat, and is simply the mechanism for allowing me to create online word of mouth for another business; I’m promoting Jack’s Tailoring, not Yelp. Of course this promotes Yelp along the way, but it’s only because the platform actually provides utility.
BosUp Roundup
It’s been a ridiculously, awesomely busy week at Brand Networks and my blog has been neglected. Here’s a long overdue roundup of the spectacular BosUp event on last Saturday night at Jillian’s. I won’t do much in the way of a recap except that everyone had a great time, there was much singing and dancing (see below), and Mike Langford’s Tweetworks beaks stole the show.
Some of my favorite Boston social media socialites (social-media-lites?), Christine Major, Thomas Edwards, and Ben Grossman:
Christine and Kevin Micalizzi (little-known fact: @kevinmic has some sweet dance moves and is not afraid to get down):
And the grand finale — the BosUp Dance & Singalong Team performing the opening bars of “Don’t Stop Believing”:
See you all next time…
Brands Bring Confidence to Facebook Connect
In early May, Facebook announced a new platform for integrating external sites with the social network. As opposed to the existing developer platform, which allowed content and functionality to be brought into Facebook, this new service would allow the Facebook social graph to travel anywhere across the web. This platform was entitled Facebook Connect.
Facebook Connect gives any site the opportunity to allow Facebook users to log in with their Facebook account, connect with existing friends, and send updates of their activities back to Facebook. You could think of it as OpenID meets a significantly better-managed Beacon.
The platform was initially only open to 24 hand-picked launch partners. These were a select group of marquis brands (RedBull, Disney), media companies (CBS, ABC, CNET) and popular Web 2.0 services (Digg, Evite). But after months of exclusive development rights, only a handful of these ever actually implemented Connect. TechCrunch was left wondering in late October: where are all the partners?
While I can understand why Facebook may have been drawn to selecting a handful of high profile partners to kick off, it’s also easy to see why this approach produced lukewarm results. Sure, it’s easy to criticize with 20/20 hindsight, but there is an important lesson Facebook should take from the evolution of its developer platform.
The model of developer platform was proven not by companies with huge production budgets, but by independent third party developers who had no production budgets whatsoever, and zero media dollars to bolster early adoption. Their apps had to be good, or they would fail. The major force for innovation in the Facebook developer platform has always come from the little guys (and girls).
Yet while it is independent developers who may drive the innovation of Facebook Connect, there is still a crucial role for brands in ultimately validating the platform. With phishing sites like “Faceubook” already popping up, it will take consumer trust in brands to permit Facebook Connect’s long term success.
Brands matter more to Facebook Connect because users are on unfamiliar ground when they interact with this platform. Installing third party apps within Facebook is something most users are comfortable with — according to Facebook itself, 95% of users have installed at least one application. For the majority of users to feel comfortable providing their Facebook login information to a third party site, they’re going to have to trust the brand that serves as the gatekeeper.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt spoke recently about the importance of branding in maintaining safety and trust online:
Brands are the solution, not the problem. Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.
Many of us working in the social networking space have been eagerly awaiting the day when Facebook Connect would be opened up to the public. It was recently announced that that day will be November 30, and Facebook is now accepting applicants to participate. My prediction is that the adoption of Facebook Connect will be dependent on a balance between innovation by small, scrappy third parties and consumer confidence in slower moving big brands. It will be interesting to see if Facebook recognizes the importance of this balance as well.
Not Waiting for The Light To Change: A Tribute to Jaywalking
3:30 in the morning with not a soul in sight, we sat four deep at a traffic light / Talking about how dumb and brainwashed some of our brothers and sisters are / While we wait for a green light to tell us when to go.
- Talib Kweli & Mos Def, Black Star
The stars will never align and the traffic lights of life will never all be green at the same time. The universe doesn’t conspire against you, but it doesn’t go out of its way to line up all the pins either. Conditions are never perfect.
- Tim Ferriss, The Four Hour Work Week
Why is a traffic light such a common metaphor for taking initiative? It makes sense when you use its more antiquated name: traffic signal. It’s always tempting to look for a signal, a sign from some higher power, to know when to start a venture, to go to market, or to make a difficult personal decision.
Every morning I have to walk across a fairly complex intersection on my way to the T. I almost never catch the light during the “walk” cycle, and it’s a long wait for it to come around again, so I’m always just powering across whenever there’s a gap in the traffic. It always amazes me how many people are always just standing there, staring at the orange hand on the crossing signal, even when there are absolutely no cars coming in either direction. I just can’t fathom waiting for a light to tell me when to cross a deserted street.
It’s just as foolish to walk blindly into the street as it is to live and die by the crossing signal. There are plenty of other indicators to look at when deciding to cross a metaphorical street (the obvious one being, what are the odds I’m going to get flattened by a metaphorical bus?). I don’t believe that success, personal or professional, is achieved by waiting for some huge, public “green light.” By that time, the jaywalkers are already on the other side of the street.
Chris Brogan wrote this morning:
We power our own change these days. In so many areas of our lives. Here in the US, that’s important to think about today.
I couldn’t agree more. Here’s to making your own change, not just today, but every day of your life.
(Photo credit: misternils on Flickr)
And So the Blog Received a New Name. And There Was Much Rejoicing.
Today I went ahead and changed the name of this blog. I felt the title was much too limiting, given all the things I wanted to talk about. I found myself making excuses when I wanted to write about something outside the scope of social media.
So now it’s just Jamie Scheu (hey, that’s me!). Of course I will still mostly be discussing the interesting developments I see on a daily basis on the front lines of social media and social networking, but I will occasionally discuss other issues I think are significant (and do so guilt-free). That was really the point all along, so I guess I’ve come full circle.
I may lose some subscribers as a result, but I’m confident this change in blogging philosophy will lead to more inspired and prolific writing. I’ve put a lot of potential blog topics on ice because they didn’t drop squarely into the social media category.
So I hope you’ll find that this change is for the best, and a big thank you to everyone who has followed me so far.
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