MySpace chief executive officer Chris DeWolfe announced on Wednesday that MySpace would be opening its API to third party developers, a direct response to Facebook’s API plans. “Within the next week or two, we’re going to be developing a catalog of widgets that are on MySpace that will make it really easy to categorize and find those widgets,” DeWolfe said. “The second thing we’re doing is that we are opening up a platform within the next couple of months to all developers. You heard it here first.” -PC Magazine Article
Personally, although I think it’s great that MySpace is finally opening it’s doors, I can’t help but feel that it’s a desperate attempt in fear of losing additional market share to the far superior Facebook. I never got what the big deal about MySpace was relative to other social media networks. The design is horrible, it’s cluttered with SPAM, and above all, it just looks so “amateur”. My only logical explanation for the masses that still use MySpace, is that they are used to using it and don’t want to switch unless their entire networks switch. Nonetheless, it will be interesting to see what kind of widgets start to appear. Will successful Facebook widgets (that made millions) simply be copied onto MySpace? I wonder what the the “code” copyright implications are in that case?
A great article just came out in the Wall Street journal on some of the new applications coming out on Facebook. Here is a list of some interesting new ones that were mentioned along with others that caught my own eye. Note that only the first two are from the public sector.
Causes - Lets you start and join the causes you care about. Donations to causes can benefit over a million registered 501(c)(3) non-profits.
Ripple - This is essentially a way of donating to a charity without spending any of your own money. Simply, ad sponsors give money to ripple for any ads viewed. Ripple donates 100% of that money to charity (we hope).
Neighborhoods-This application uses the founding company’s broker-defined neighborhood system to help Facebook members meet other people who live near them and share local information and photos. It also shows properties for sale in the neighborhood from any of Point2’s broker and agent members, which the company says number about 140,000 in 86 countries.
MyStyle - Lets Facebook’s fashionistas place on their profile pages pictures of items they like from the retailer’s site, such as Oscar de la Renta dresses.
Trips- Provides a place where groups can set travel dates, create itineraries and post messages to each other. Less than two weeks ago, SideStep added a search box to its application, which, the company says, now drives 2,000 visits to its site each day — where people can search for airplane tickets, hotels and rental cars. SideStep plans to enhance the application and, eventually, show some targeted ads.
Visual Bookshelf - Helps Facebook members find new books to read by getting recommendations and reading reviews written by their friends.
Upon first glance, none of these bring anything drastically new to the table. However, what is interesting is that the barriers to entry in developing them were significantly reduced. Why? No proprietary software was needed, promotional costs were drastically reduced and community was formed overnight thanks to the power of social media.
Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Individual Facebook profiles will now appear in search results.
What does this mean to you?
If you have your own Facebook profile, then you can piggy back on the high search visibility of the “www.facebook.com” domain to control your personal online brand. If I type my name into Google right now, my blog entires and LinkedIn profile dominate the results (other than the other Mike Kujawski who purchased www.mikekujawski.com years ago to make a C-class website with pics of himself, his dog, and his wife–he appears #1). Now my Facebook profile will be joining these results. So make sure your profile pics are accurate and up to date; and get ready for an onslaught of people requesting to add you as friends!
I was recently part of a discussion on LinkedIn concerning whether or not people should be devoting time to both of these popular social networks (Facebook and LinkedIn) or allocate their time to one. My answer was as follows:
I have been using Facebook since its infancy primarily as a personal social networking tool as opposed to business. That’s what it was initially created to be and what it did best (i.e. a way for college students and alumni to stay in touch). It has evolved tremendously and spread like wildfire. Now it is the primary means that my demographic uses to stay in touch with one another and be “in-the-loop” at all times.
The business world has quickly caught on and is trying to make use of Facebook’s power, especially now that the floodgates have opened and users can create their own Facebook applications.
I find it a bit concerning, yet at the same time exciting that my Personal life is now being blurred with my Work life as clients (who are typically in an older demographic than myself) are starting to send me Facebook “friend” requests. To date, all of my 286 “friends” have been actual friends, acquaintances and family. Business contacts are now starting to leak in, which is not always a good thing (I wrote a blog entry on this topic last week).
That being said, Facebook is a great way for businesses to form specific communities. For instance, instead of having an online forum on your website, just tell clients to join your official company Facebook group where they can post/blog/comment/rant/share/tag to their hearts desire (why not, it’s free!).
I think LinkedIn serves a completely different purpose than Facebook and thus you should dedicate resources to both. The main difference is that LinkedIn was created for BUSINESS. It makes it harder for anyone to just join your network. Users can’t actually request to be in your network unless they know your email AND you let them. It is up to the LinkiedIn community to keep it that way and not just let anyone join their networks. I think the whole “3 degree concept is genius” especially when applied to business networking and helping to advance careers.
In Facebook, when you connect to existing long time users, you will find much more of a blend of their personal lives mixed into their profiles (maybe even more than you would like to know, like those bachelor party photos of you tagged by your friends).
My recommendation: Treat LinkedIn as you would treat your offline “quality” business contacts and leads. A place where you can ask expert questions and have expert replies. The functionality of LinkedIn will improve over time, so that should not be an issue. For now, let’s keep dedicating time to the LinkedIn community and it’s official purpose, which is to provide an effective platform for all types of professionals to connect with one another.
I find it interesting that Social Media Networks show Barack Obama and Ron Paul as leaders for the Presidency (when using amount of “friends” as a popularity metric), whereas every traditional poll conducted recently shows Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani having commanding leads.
What are your thoughts on this?
Is it that the amount of people using online channels is far smaller and irrelevant? Does this prove that the amount of “friends” is meaningless? Maybe its the fact that Barack Obama and Ron Paul supporters are younger and/or have a more open attitude towards social media?
Personally, I think its a combination of factors. The main one being that Barack Obama and Ron Paul supporters have a particular radical attitude. They want change, they are influencers and trend setters in society, they are more liberal, they use new media channels, they want a new leader with the same mindset.
So why do traditional polls not show these candidates at the top while social media networks do? Simple: In terms of raw numbers across the nation, their supporters are still the minority even though they comprise the majority of actively engaged online users.
“Spies and teenagers normally have little in common but that is about to change as America’s intelligence agencies prepare to launch “A-Space”, an internal communications tool modelled on the popular social networking sites, Facebook and MySpace.
The Director of National Intelligence will open the site to the entire intelligence community in December. The move is the latest part of an ongoing effort to transform the analytical business following the failure to detect the 9/11 terrorist attacks or find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”
Incredible! Kudos to the CIA for realizing the powerful potential of social media networks. Now if only the Canadian government could learn from our neighbours down south and follow suite to reduce the bureaucracy and lack of communication within and amongst departments. What are we doing instead? Banning Facebook. Go figure.
I just read the recent Marketing Profs article on Facebook and its implications for marketers: What the Web Marketer Should Know About Facebook. It’s a great summary of Facebook features and some interesting new facts (i.e. the fastest growing Facebook segment is 35+). A question I’ve been pondering on lately is whether or not it is a good thing that my business contacts and clients are trying to get on there. I’ve been using Facebook since its infancy (I was one of the many originators sending all those annoying Facebook invites hoping other friends would join). Soon all my friends (actual friends) were on board and it became a great MSN Messenger compliment for staying in touch with my friends (for those unaware, MSN Messenger / ICQ were the real-time chat platforms of choice amongst the 18-25 demographic at the time).
Where am I going with this? Well, as an individual, I have my private conversations and photos on there, which are meant to be shared and seen by my close friends (from my private social life).
As a marketing professional , I am reluctant to be adding business contacts and potential clients as “friends” (unless they really are). There seems to be a serious blurring of the lines between private and work life. Personally, I have nothing to hide, however, I do still feel that there should exist a certain level of separation between the two. Perhaps I should create a second business identity on Facebook? This would likely be a pointless effort. No matter what privacy settings we have, everything that we post online will someday be easily accessible to someone looking for it.
My advice: be smart with what you do online, regardless of where it is. Start thinking of yourself as a BRAND. Be consistent, and always be aware that a future employer might be looking at your blog post/youtube video/facebook photo/ etc…
For now, as my business social media network I use LinkedIn.
This is a great little social technology summary image from Forrester Research that I use in many of my web strategies. Let me know if you know of any similar summaries that are more up-to-date.
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Social Media Networks | Tagged: API, MySpace, open source, widgets | 
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