There is an evil temptation that far too many companies are having trouble resisting – the temptation to launch a new product or service on Facebook.
Every month, when the number of Facebook users seem to go up by 100 million or so – to a current tally of 750 million (let’s be serious, about half are most likely fictional or animals), the CEOs of most entertainment and technology companies get the crazy urge to somehow “tap into that customer base.”
This crazy urge must be resisted. Why? So Facebook is destroyed and the people of the world can go on to a much more interesting existence.
In my opinion, doing business with Facebook is the equivalent of doing business with China. Companies feel they need break into the Chinese market because there is FREAKING 1.3 BILLION PEOPLE THERE! “If we just get 0.0001% we’ll be successful. It’s a no brainer!”
And nearly every company goes there with their hat in their hand – giving every insane concession imaginable just to get in the door – and, eventually, come home with a giant footprint on their ass.
Reminder: The Chinese government can do whatever they want. The deal signed means nothing. If they don’t like your attitude or your product or just feel you’re getting a little “too friendly”, they’ll cut you off and send you home a miserable failure. And it doesn’t matter how many cartons of cigarettes or bottles of Slivovitz you give local officials. When it’s over, it’s over.
This is also true of Facebook.
I firmly believe Facebook could absolutely destroy Zynga (and numerous other companies) overnight. They have that power.
Granted, there is too much money at stake with Zynga’s upcoming IPO, so they probably won’t exert that power. But do you think the Zynga executives are going to do anything to antagonize Facebook… ever? Mark Zuckerberg knows the power he has over Mark Pincus.
That is another reason why Facebook must be stopped. Too many people are believing the hype and are afraid of being left behind.
Every day, Facebook dominates technology news. Press release after press release announces Facebook’s new initiatives and services. Their PR department sends out a press release, websites rewrite them slightly and, pow, you have technology news with a narrative controlled by… Facebook.
This week came a “leak” that they will be going into the Music business by blending streaming services such as Spotify, rdio and MOG into the Facebook user experience.
After all, why should anyone have to leave Facebook to listen to music? Why should anyone have to leave Facebook ever?
(I am working on a product that integrates Facebook into my morning shower. There must be a way to combine my Facebook news feed with the water from the shower head so my friend’s status updates directly enter my pores and absorb into my brain. But I digress….)
Spotify is a great service. They don’t need Facebook. People on Facebook don’t complain about having to toggle away from Facebook in order to go onto Spotify. It ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
Spotify and other media companies need to resist the temptation of the 750 million non-paying users (which includes millions of dogs and cats who don’t really care what songs they listen to).
And look at this growth chart (left). 7.3 billion users in 2015 vs. only 7.2 billion people alive on the planet!
Major media companies (including my parent company Manka Bros. Studios) need to realize that Facebook needs them more than they need Facebook. (Manka Bros. is actually working on a ‘Facebook Killer’ – Caligula – to launch later this year but I fear it will be more of the same.)
Content is the driver of everything in media. Put a great movie on a crappy 13 inch black & white TV and it’s still a great movie and people will watch it. Put a shitty movie on a 110″ inch HD television screen with Dolby SurroundSound, movie lighting and a cocktail, and it’s still a shitty movie that no one will watch.
Facebook needs to realize that the only reason they are popular is because we all have this urge to see what our friends from high school and college look like now. That’s it really. It’s not to watch “The Dark Knight” for 30 Facebook Credits or buy pigs on “Farmville” (millions do it, I know, and why not? – it’s right there in front of us and we’re freakin’ bored with our lives).
But I think it’s time to break away and see what else is out there in the world.
Jill Kennedy – OnMedea
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When will people get it, about facebook? You are not the customer, you are the product. The customers are the ad companies and the others with deep pockets tossing money into MarkZ’s lap.
They’ve repeatedly exhibited a callousness and disdain for peoples’ privacy. These were not “mistakes” as MarkZ claims, these were deliberate breaches of privacy to enrich the FB stakeholders.
FB is a behemoth beast whose evil tentacles are burrowing deeper into our lives and slowly ripping it apart.
it is exactly that which i need keep sharing
For Facebook I think challenge comes in 2012 as Friendio exit beta in April 2011 and now getting ready for 2012 in January. I think they get it right.
I think flatlining growth and unrealistic revenue targets will also be a challenge.
Come on, how do you want to be taken seriously when you’re acting like this?
Facebook’s 750 millions (now 800 millions) are ACTIVE users. They mention it quite a lot for press and people like you to notice. ACTIVE meaning they use the site. More than 500 million use the site e-v-e-r-y d-a-y!
You can be friends with dogs, it doesn’t mean these dogs are counted in the ACTIVE users. This is the true strength of Facebook. I truly hate when there isn’t even a minimum of objectivity in articles.
Now if I put that aside, I admit this is quite funny.
If you create a profile for your dog or cat…and log into that profile and post as your dog or cat (which will get you defriended and blocked from my friend’s list faster than you can say “Today was a purrrfect day, meow!”), your cat and dog are counted as active FB users. The truth is, since they started using whatever logarithmics to choose for you which of your friends’ and liked pages’ posts you get to see, FB has become droll, boring and repetitive. What sense does it make that you only get to see posts from the people you interact with the most, if the point of FB is to help people connect?
The new timeline will be the final nail in FB’s coffin. It is busy and an eyesore and reminds me of everything I hated about Myspace. Whenever I click on anyone’s page and I see that thing, I leave their page because its too hard to navigate and too busy. If all pages become like that, I will deactivate my profile.
Hey, Manu, Facebook will collapse under its own idiocy by March of 2014. You do not have to believe me. The clock is already ticking. Facebook is for stupid, self-absorbed, narcissistic, arrogant people who lack the discernment to protect what is valuable in their life: their events and friends. The end is near. Stupid is as stupid does.
You claimed on the New York Post website about 2 hours ago that creeps and introverts do the bullying. As a kid who was bullied relentlessly (and my brother beaten up repeatedly) since the third grade, it was NEVER by an “introvert” or “creep”. They were all the popular kids, cheerleaders, sports team members etc, they were all the clique-y kids. Now, nearly 20 years after graduation, they STILL have not outgrown it. I still get the same torments (mostly about my name, hobby, and how much money my parents didn’t have) I was getting in the third grade when I see them now and then. The saddest part is that a couple of them are now working for the local schools and likely teaching that crap to a new generation. Which in my opinion is why schools do nothing about this until it gets out of hand. If the adults at the school were once the bullies, of course they won’t punish any. My children are home schooled.
Hey RM,
Thanks for a good comment. I don’t deny that the popular kids – jocks, cheerleaders, etc. – can still be an absolute terror within the schools. Of course. Unfortunately, that’s probably the way it’s always going to be. I’m just saying that social networks like Facebook are opening up bullying to other anti-social elements – like the asshole who shot Gaby Giffords and killed those people in Tucson. Because it no longer requires a face to face confrontation to be a bully, there is a frightening new element (not just the dumb jock and idiot cheerleaders). We knew that enemy existed. I am sorry you were bullied in school and I don’t discount popular kids who take pleasure in others’ pain – I just think there is something darker at work here – and not just cheerleaders.
No pity for the majority! Facebook may be around for a while but it is disloyal to its original purpose of a college-only social network and why I joined. If Zuckerberg wanted a site to be for families, businesses and controlling your entire life (as is their goal, right?). Then it should have been another domain (maybe called: lifebook), what it has evolved into is not cool, Facebook sucks! I made my own network just to prove staying genuine to a purpose matters, not running wild with your idea and selling out the people who made you worth a dollar in the first place.
I have never had a Facebook page, recognizing it immediately as the data mining operation it is. The thing that disturbs me is, the amount of information they have on me, my contacts, and associates, by NOT accepting invitations to be “friends”.
Even though Facebook does merit some criticism, I think most of the common critiques of Facebook aren’t very credible. People talk about Facebook sharing data with companies through ads, but regardless of whether people use the types of companies listed at http://www.buyfacebookfansreviews.com or Facebook ads directly, no company advertising on Facebook is getting access to any personally identifiable information through ads. Facebook could make some extra money in the short run doing this, but in the long run they benefit more hoarding this data and keeping it private. Facebook isn’t going to do the dumb things their detractors accuse them of. Zuckerberg may have some negative points as a person (I don’t know I’ve never met him) but he’s running his company very well.
WTF? Can you say “bad statistical extrapolation”?!?
I can also say – “you don’t know what you’re talking about, Jing Jing.”
Can you explain how that graph works, exactly?
Heh. I described you as marriage material on my evil FB profile for this. Less about FB and more about China. They are on different levels of evil though but when it comes to China Ive stopped describing the whole clusterfuck as “stupid white people” and more like “white people being stupid”.
There are a distressingly small number of the country club elite that can see the bullshit, going into China is worse than credit default swaps and 2006. Its one thing to lose your home but to lose your country in the process? then there are those that think China will let them move over their entire corporate presence over just like that without getting cleaned out and being the bitch?
Jill. You are absolutely brilliant! Your observations are spot on!