Nick Cifuentes

In a just-released Forrester research report, it said that most marketers should refrain from location-based services, citing that just a mere 4% of the US online adults have ever checked in on the “location game.” And only 1% update these services more than once a week.

The study revealed some interesting statistics, as it looked at a large number of location-based sites, including popular players such as Foursquare, Gowalla, MyTown and Loopt. And to add to the study, a whopping 84% of respondents said they had no idea or were not even familiar enough with such types of apps. This study comes at an interesting time, since 2010 was marked the year of location-based services, igniting fires under social media marketers - all trying to integrate location-based strategies into their marketing programs.

And to add to the bottleneck, the report said almost 80% of location-based service users are male, with close to 70% of them between the ages of 19 and 35, and 70% have college degrees or higher. Forrester also discovered that 38% were more likely to say friends and family ask their opinions before a purchase, in addition, this crowd was very open to mobile coupons and offers as well. This vertical is also more resourceful with research prior to a purchase where nearly 20% are more likely to consult their phones before buying to conduct more research and read customer reviews.

Location-Based Reality Stinks?

This certainly brings most marketers back to reality before jumping on the location game bandwagon.

Although this data cuts down a very small segment to target, it’s still very approachable when you consider products that live in the gaming, consumer electronics, and sportswear verticals. These are the verticals that lead the way with testing these applications, according to Forrester. However, the location space is full of brands that are already proving they are not just for the male audience. Big players such as Starbucks, Oil of Olay, Bravo, Gossip Girl, Campbell’s Soup, Louis Vuitton, Bon Appétit, Lucky Magazine, TLC, and PepsiCo are all currently experimenting with location-based services.

But as in any new technology, there is always the question of adoption rate, and to be honestly blunt, these networks are very much in their infant stages. Foursquare has just over 2 million users; Loopt has 4 million, and MyTown with 2.5 million - barely a drop in the bucket from a marketing standpoint.

And the next question is scale, when this will happen? As of now, the digital social network rulers such as Facebook, Google and Twitter are not fully involved in the location game. When their entrance takes place, this will help set the market more efficiently, creating a much higher adoption rate. And a drastic shift in competition for the current market.

Thoughts…

As Forrester always does well, and does often - it reports the facts. I don’t think marketers should completely avoid location-based service programs, nor is Forrester saying that. They are however saying that you should tread lightly and not expect any massive returns as you start to experiment in this sort of advertising.

However, the market always moves quickly, as we all have become aware of over the past several years in social media’s popularity. If digital adoption rates stick, I’d say we would be in a good place to give this just a bit more of time before more users begin amass on each of these networks.

Depending on your specialty, I’d say it’s reckless to not at least consider location-based services when considering new social media programs. Your brand’s demographic might not fall directly into what Forrester reports, however, you should consider the question of “When?” At exactly what point will the ‘branded’ location-based network space take off in popularity? When will they eventually act like your Facebook branded community does now?

I think the real question is: Do you want to get involved now, or several months or years from now when every brand on the planet is doing it?

These types of applications will grow; they will be built beyond a cliché, cornball badge to tell your friends on Facebook or Twitter about. Monetary, if not branded products will soon replace these and be offered in place of  a ‘real’ incentive for checking-in. We already have started to see this in mobile coupon deals that Starbucks offers.

These incentives will get better and will have a stronger support system as the adoption rate increases.

We’ve just started in this game kids…just give it time.

The Pharma battle has been one of the more entertaining enigmas surrounding social media within the past several years, and without question, still very much unsolved. When carefully thought out - it’s one simple question - how should Pharma marketers approach social media?

Since the dawn of social media marketing (used loosely), Pharma brands have found social media - nerve-wracking - nervous to dive head-in to large social media programs.

Scenario: Imagine you created a drug that could cure the common cold. Then imagine it did just that. Then one day - it stopped working, and even worse - it ended up killing someone. (Dramatic I know, but bear with me). The press picks the story up, Twitter and Facebook explode in negative mentions, and blogs begin to slam the creator of the new drug, Izroda (company made up for literary purposes). Forum discussions pile up and viral videos mocking the drug surface, all while the the Pharma brand Izroda just stands there, helpless - shackled by the FDA’s guidelines.

This is what Pharma brands are worried about, the “adverse events” that can come from consumer discussions. Brands such as AstraZeneca, Novartis, Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Boehringer Ingelheim are all worried about the off-label uses, chances for incorrect information about drugs and drug marketers to end up on third party sites, this all increases the potential for negative fallout from social media activity.

However, these brands are not completely frightened of social media, some have been dipping their toes in social media for more than a year now, but treading very lightly. They have been experimenting with platforms like Twitter; in addition, some have been more involved using viral, crowdsourcing strategies to accomplish a variety of things. They are improving customer engagements with their brands, delivering important information, educating, tweaking brand perceptions, and have been monitoring and analyzing consumer-generated content.

“[Pharmaceutical marketers] need to ask whether their social media program is good for marketing and good for public health. If they can’t answer yes, then they shouldn’t be doing it.”

In a recent interview with eMarketer.com, Pitts helped clear up some lingering questions about the FDA’s expectations to issue guidance on the use of social media in 2010.

“There are a lot of ifs. The first if is, is this really a good thing? A lot of times when you ask for regulation and you get it, you may not be happy with it. If marketers are waiting for FDA guidance with the assumption that it’s going to make their jobs easier, that’s very much open to question.

When you look to a regulatory agency that is very strong on science but just mediocre on social science and you ask it to think about issues as complicated as social media, it’s a real crap shoot. Will the FDA actually choose to write guidance or will it be a draft guidance? And if so, what will it focus on? My best guess is that the guidance will deal with very low-hanging-fruit issues.”

And will Pharma marketers receive the guidance they need to feel more secure about participating in social media in 2010?

“If the industry thinks the FDA is going to come out wit

h thoughtful and complete guidance on how to use social media in 110 different circumstances, it’s going be very disappointed. The FDA is going to take baby steps to move forward. Those who think that they’re going to receive a document that answers all their questions simply do not understand the FDA process.

The most important thing to understand is that everybody, including the FDA, realizes that social media is where the people are. Drug companies want to engage with people on social media sites. But I think the key question is what is and what is not regulated speech. Regulated speech is generally a very specific thing. I don’t think anybody wants the FDA to say that all health-related communications on social media is regulated speech.

When it comes to guidance, the problem is that the FDA embraces ambiguity because ambiguity gives it tremendous power and elasticity to change its mind given the circumstance. What pharmaceutical marketers are doing is waiting to see what the FDA says and then they’ll act accordingly. However, if the guidance the FDA comes out with isn’t some King James version of the Bible that everybody’s hoping it’s going to be, and it

certainly will not, the question then becomes, which marketers will step forward and choose to be more aggressive than they previously have been?”

Pitts said his best guess is that the FDA will end up clarifying some things and “muddy others,” but not really give anyone a clear picture. In the end, it will be up to the drug companies to make the choice on whether they move ahead with social media. The big issue that remains foggy is what is regulated and what is not regulated.

“The key point is what is regulated vs. unregulated speech. If I am a patient with arthritis and I am speaking on a social media site to another patient who has arthritis, that is not regulated speech. If, however, I am talking to one patient who has arthritis and I have arthritis and we’re speaking on a site that is sponsored by a drug company, is that regulated speech? That’s very much up in the air.

If people talk to each other and there’s no money exchanging hands, that is not regulated speech. Whenever the FDA has been taken to court on First Amendment issues, it loses. So the FDA is being very cautious about avoiding what’s called “regulatory creep,” which is a way of trying to regulate things that it is not intended to regulate.”

One key outstanding issue that truly keeps Pharma brands from diving head into social media centers around drug companies correcting misinformation on internet properties they don’t own.

“Right now, a lot of companies feel that if they go onto a site to correct a mistake they will be seen as being responsible for everything else on that site. So, for example, a drug company goes on a website and says “Hello, my name is Tobi Elkin and I work for Pfizer. I saw something on your website that’s not correct.” You can offer the site a link that goes directly back to your website, which is vetted by your attorneys and completely appropriate. That’s what I would call a regulatory green zone-total transparency. I would like to see more of that.

Even something as simple as that is oftentimes seen as overly aggressive by a lot of companies. There are other companies who have as their official procedure that they will not monitor sites that they don’t control for fear of unearthing an adverse event. That may put them in compliance with the letter of the regulation, but if a reporter from The New York Times called and asked “Do you have a policy of not looking for adverse events on the internet?” and they said “Yes,” they would look pretty silly and it would sound even worse in front of a congressional subcommittee.

So the concept of being in compliance vs. doing the right thing for the public health cannot be contrary to each other and right now they are. The issue is to step up to the plate and do what’s right instead of what is legally conservative.”

*This image is courtesy of Facebakers.com and was made exclusively for Mashable

Consumers can be a very impressionable bunch. And retailers often try and take advantage of that hiccup by testing the their power of promotional messages throughout online channels. And with social media beginning to play an active role in many approaches, retailers can get caught up in the viral hype of coupons via social and mobile platforms.

However, a new study said that email is still the more effective promotional channel for driving consumers. The survey analyzed shoppers in 10 states, where nearly 40% of this group preferred to receive promotional messages from retailers by email.

While email was the most popular communications channel, directly mail drew about a quarter of responses, and text message coming in third with 18%. And to slight surprise, just 9% of shoppers were interested in promotional messages received via social media.

These new findings are also supported in another recent study that found more than 90% of adult internet users in every age group subscribed to emails from brands, while just a small amount of users “liked” companies on Facebook or followed them on Twitter.

Thoughts…

This study does make sense, and being a strong advocate for social media, I’d sometimes try to defend ‘my team’ and make a case why a study like this is limiting in some respects. And to be honest, I can’t. Thinking of how the consumer takes action and what stimulates a buyer to take a coupon or some sort of savings and follow that path to an in-store location - first of all; your asking the user to do quite a bit of work.

Now, email, which is more regularly adopted among all age groups and was the first electronic communication channel since the internet rose to popularity - that is where you are going to strike the majority of users first. And, secondly the demographic of a person heading into a store to use a coupon is most likely in an older demographic who may not be as likely to hop on Facebook every morning before they get up.

And my mention above about limiting - I think even taking this study nationwide and spreading it over the country, we would most likely see a similar result in numbers.

It also calls to the idea of viral coupons, items that allow you to print out via your favorite social network, or walk-in to a store with a mobile coupon or code and use it instantly; they are out there - but the adoption rate still is in that early adopter, trendsetter crowd who use these tools everyday. I can tell you that my mom won’t at anytime soon run to her supermarket and whip out her mobile phone to flash a bar code to scan and save $1.50 on fig newtons. She would however receive her coupon via email and mail; two channels she regularly frequents, and bring those into the store to use.

When I first read this study, I instantly thought of the Bed Bath & Beyond 20% off coupons I receive in the mail every month; and at least a couple times a year, my girlfriend and I are making a trip to a location to figure out how to spend that savings.

In the end, retailers on social channels are going to drive more consumers using these platforms for awareness and allowing that user to take part in their community online. There will always be the occasional ‘coupon’ incentive where you complete a game, answer a question, and receive a coupon to use at a local retailer - but you are not going to draw the mass amount of users that check email or receive direct mail flyers - as of now, they are winning…clearly.

UPDATE: The activity around the campaign just keeps this train hauling down the road to becoming one of the best viral campaigns for 2010…recent stats updated @ 3p.m. PST.

Twitter: More than 47,000 total followers & counting… (averaging 3-6 new followers a second!!)
YouTube: Currently the #1 viewed YouTube channel so far today; & because they are a YouTube sponsor - they are currently #1 in the sponsored channel rankings for (month, week and today); see more stats below:

#4 - Most Subscribed (All-Time) - Sponsors
#1 - Most Viewed (Today)
#1 - Most Viewed (Today) - Sponsors
#35 - Most Viewed (This Week)
#31 - Most Viewed (This Month)
#1 - Most Viewed (This Month) - Sponsors
#3 - Most Viewed (All Time) - Sponsors

Social Media Mentions (Blogs, Micromedia, Facebook, Videos, Images, Forums)

As of last night, the total mentions were around 6,500 as of 5 p.m. PST - people went home, ate a little dinner and continued to watch as it totaled a number of nearly 10,500 mentions, which broken down ended up looking like this:

Tweets - 8,300+
Facebook - 1,300+ status update mentions
Blogs - 660+ blog articles (mentions)
*The other neighborhoods gathered data as well, but these were the valuable mentions Old Spice received via social media.

As for today, the volume is continuing, as it is getting an amount of mentions across the social sphere that brands normally pay top dollar for. And this is not to say that Old Spice did not, I am sure that two-full days of a crew filming, paying the Old Spice guy, editing videos, posting, responding and monitoring their profile activity continuously - yes, it takes dollars to do that; but the return in new social media relationships, brand awareness and the amount of advocates they have secured to work for them in just 36 hours by posting Old Spice mentions to their social media profiles & blogs - not to steal this from anyone we might know (clear the throat…) - Priceless!

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The Pew Research Center recently fielded a study focused on the future of social relations. The research study revolved around one statement:

“In 2020, when I look at the big picture and consider my personal friendships, marriage and other relationships, I see that the internet has mostly been a positive force on my social world. And this will only grow more true in the future.”

In the end, 85% of the surveyed audience agreed with the statement, while 14% took to the other direction and saw the internet as mostly being a negative force within their social world.

Although this recent study is no way mind-blowing, or anything too shifting that causes our culture to stop and wonder, it does open up the idea of influence and just how much a catalyst the internet is for creating shifts in our daily lives. With creation, cultivation, and the expansion of social relationships – we are able to touch a number of points & places in the world that just a short time ago we had scarce interaction with.

In the Pew study, survey respondents noted that with the internet’s many social positives, also came alongside a number of negatives. Respondents noted that tools such as email and social networks are & can be used in harmful ways. In addition, it can cost valuable face-to-face relationships; where communications are hidden behind computer screens and often never reach past a shallow conversation. The internet was also tied to the idea of being a place where individuals silo themselves and limit their exposure to new ideas. Privacy was also brought up as a key indicator, however, we hear of this constantly when mentioned alongside negative connotations, and yet we see little to no drop-off in growth, so I see this as something that will always be mentioned, but often ignored.

Many people who said the internet was a positive force noted that it “costs” individuals less to communicate with each other, helping structure new relationships over more geographical territory. Some respondents suggested that there will be new “categories of relationships,” a new “art of politics,” a sort of evolution in friendships if you so desire.

And most notably, as this plays out, people are just beginning to address the ways in which nearly “frictionless,” easy-access, global communications networks will alter how reputations are created, perceived and trusted. (Think of YOUR BRAND here)*

The Lonely Internet

The virtual world that exist, connected through computers, laptops, digital devices such as mobile phones, netbooks, tablets, and so on; offer us the ability to avoid a lonely internet. Think back to when you first were online, think pre-social networks and what type of interactions you had? The internet was used as a portal for just searching information, which was in no way as robust as it is now. Social networks and the internet are another utility for supporting social life. The idea of ‘thinking’ too much about social networks and the role they play in society will eventually dissipate, similar to as the telephone did when that was a new type of communication tool (*I know, this was a very long time ago :P), and eventually was taken-for-granted. You don’t see any individuals think the telephone is an alienating force; it supports your social life. And now as social networks and internet take to life, they too will eventually be assumed a basic daily utility. You see this happening now as a recent study had a 1/3 of women 18-35 checking Facebook before they even rolled out of bed in the morning.

Human interactions are always up for debate, and we see that the internet has helped extinguish some of these differences people have had and now it acts as a communications gold mine. By closing the geographic distance between family and friends, the internet now acts as a communicative tool that can function through instant-messages and video conversations; it frees up more time for individuals, as well as cutting costs on travel and other manners of communication that may cost more. Twitter & Facebook, as inferior these tools may sound to many, provide a wide range in forms of communication, that can offer comfort & encouragement, expand a person’s worldview, filter information and offer feedback on-demand.

The internet also breaks the shyness barrier, which is often in the very beginning stage of every relationship. Think of that person you were always nervous to approach, or maybe that event or new place you wanted to venture to, be it a restaurant, a concert, a movie, a large event, maybe even sky-diving! Think personal items such as clothes or electronics – you can ‘scratch & sniff’ now without even leaving your home. Point it, research can be done on-demand, whether you are at your desk or on-the-go, and often very quickly based on your insight, as well as other recommendations. In the end, your decisions are becoming easier to make, because they are being made for you with the internet and its social utilities.

Shallow Relationships

Those often against internet and its social utilities, frequently fight the battle of face-to-face encounters. The argument is valid and does stand as a cultural issue in today’s world with users spending more time behind the computer instead of communicating with “real individuals.” This type of exposure opens the idea of social networks promoting shallow relationships, which many see as a negative force in today’s world. You might know what your 30 friends had for dinner last night, but you don’t know whether any of them might be struggling with major life issues. If we live by this point, many people will have a hundreds of acquaintances, and very few friends. (*Not sure if acquaintancebook.com is available?)

One point I do consider, is what type of impact this has for a child born in this new age of information exchange. I, as an adult, became involved in the internet and using it as a social utility; I stress as an adult. In some ways I fear what might happen to children who consume this type of information exchange so early – what type of real-life relationship might they form, and how will they function when they reach a social reality outside of a computer? Children consume video games, the internet, reading books on their parent’s iPads & Kindles, etc. The question remains should this activity be arrested and pointed out, or do we continue and allow this type of behavior because it’s becoming accepted and well known in our culture. Something I can’t really answer…can you?

Conclusion

As time moves forward though, I truly expect technological advances to continue to change and shape how social relations take place online. As we see now, both sides to the argument prove worthy cases for and against the internet evolving as a daily social utility in our lives. In the future, we can only expect a more intense display of technologies and new ways to communicate, such as holographic displays, powerful visualization decision-based tools, permanent and trusted cloud archive storehouses, even stronger semantic web tools that predict our own behaviors and act for us.

But, as the Pew Research study pointed out, while our tools are changing quickly, basic human nature will most likely adjust at a much slower pace. It’s sad, but very true.

What are your thoughts on the topic, will social media improve your life in the future, tell me how? And feel free to reach out to me via email, Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook. I can also be reached @LoomisGroup via cifuentesn@loomisgroup.com

Every four years, a spectacle across the world takes place that rivals no other event, the World Cup. And with the event set to kick-off June 10, digital enthusiasts expect it to ignite digital interactions online. During the last World Cup in 2006, social media was not as impactful as it is today. YouTube, then independently owned, garnered just about 100 million video views per month, compared to the more than 6 billion it nabbed in the beginning of 2010. Facebook was a college and high school only network for college students, and Twitter was a star in @bizstone’s eye. As for video streaming, the World Cup did not live stream games on the Internet, so if any, streaming was barely existent except for maybe pirated networks.

Fast-forward four years later, Facebook has more than 450+ million users worldwide, and Twitter broadcasts more than 50 million tweets a day. This year’s World Cup is expected to see unprecedented amount of traffic via social networks and other digital activity, and is should create a landmark moment in our short digital history.

Live Streaming the World Cup

First, let’s start with the live streams. In the US, ESPN/ABC and Univision have all the rights to the broadcast in English and Spanish, and those will also extend to the web, where ESPN3 (formerly ESPN360.com), owned by Disney will be streaming all the matches live. All streams will be carried for free with an ad-supported model involved.

And even though football is not an American-friendly sport (known as soccer in the US), you can expect the streaming audience in the US to be huge. Of the total 32 teams involved in this year’s tournament, 11 have US-based populations of more than 1 million, according the Census Bureau surveys. This is something to surely ignite several major US expatriates that will be looking to power behind their team, whether it’s via television or digital media.

Outside of the US, the potential for streaming video is impressive. A recent study from Universal McCann, shows Internet users in select countries who watch video online from 2006 – 2009, and the numbers are considerably higher in terms of percent viewed. Brazil, China, Spain, South Korea, and Australia all spout impressive online video watching percentages and surely will translate come this year’s World Cup. However, let’s make this one point clear, outside of the US, it is almost always acceptable to stop everything, even work to watch World Cup games on TV; school, work, it all stops for the World Cup.

In Argentina for example, the minister of education grants his country’s schools permission to broadcast World Cup games inside the classroom. His reasoning you ask? He said the games hold a ‘pedagogic’ value, and also said that his students would most likely skip school to watch the games in any manner, so what better than to just allow the students to watch the games in the classroom anyways.
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Look out, because here they come! Foursquare, the ever-growing location-based social network is quickly digging its clamps into the mainstream as CEO Dennis Crowley reveled that the community is adding about 15,000 users per day. The announcement was made at this Business Insider’s Startup 2010 event in New York City this morning.

Foursquare first made it’s major debut at the SXSW 2009 Music, Film & Interactive Festival last year in Austin, where it was dubbed “the next Twitter.” With such a gracious title, the location-based network has exploded, recently surpassing the one million user mark, and now adding a substantial amount of new users a day.

Addressing the crowd this morning, Crowley said he very excited to provide a violable platform that businesses can utilize, offering “Google Analytics but for local merchants.” For example, allowing a small cafe to see its demographics and identify its most influential customers. These are powerful statistics that businesses can leverage to turn visits into meaningful data, very useful for future business strategy, as well as gathering consumer insights.

Foursquare has struck a number of recent media partnerships that have helped propel the community into the limelight. It’s recently announced deal with Starbucks, where Mayors of each location will receive a $1.00 off a drink is just the tipping point of what they have achieved so far. Bravo, Zagat, MTV, The Wall Street Journal, History Channel, and a number of other deals have been struck that have sent this new type of community channel soaring above its competition.

It’s main competitor, Gowalla, has not seen the kind of numbers it thought it would when it had it’s showdown with Foursquare at SXSW this past March. Both spurred a major amount of buzz, however, Foursquare seems to the be the clear winner so far.

Compete.com reports that more than 2 million + unique visitors a month are now heading to Foursquare, as opposed to just a little more than 500,000 for Gowalla. And this doesn’t account for it’s sole use in the mobile space, imaginably much more active.

Foursquare vs. Gowalla

Despite Foursquare’s dominance, Crowley believes competition in the location space will expand, and for Foursquare to carve its niche, he said he needs to provide a unique experience, as opposed to what larger sites could end up doing.

Guess who just had a birthday - YouTube! The video channel that has established itself as the ’standard’ when it comes to watching videos online, announced there 5th birthday, and that the platform has exceeded 2 billion video views per day.

As part of its 5th Anniversary, YouTube is launching the YouTube 5 Year Channel to help celebrate its story and retell the history of YouTube and how it first began. This is all part of a larger campaign just launched, “My YouTube Story” , where users can submit their YouTube story and explain how its community has impacted their lives. Documentary filmmaker, Stephen Higgins, has been assigned the task to help pull all these moments together on the channel.

It’s quite amazing what YouTube has become. In just five years time, it has more than 2 billion video views per day, nearly 1/3 the world’s population. In addition, there is more than 24 hours of video uploaded every minute to the site, every day! Also on the YouTube 5 Year Channel, you can see an interactive timeline of the key moments in YouTube’s growth - starting at the beginning, back in 2005.

What do you think of the new achievement, has YouTube made an impact on your life?

Internet video has changed the way we consume online media, with video watching have evolved in just 5 years with YouTube, we are still going through the juvenile moments, and most marketers are still trying to grasp how to properly use video in their marketing channels.

Justin Foster, Founder and President of the Video Commerce Consortium, and
Co-Founder and VP Market Development at Liveclicker, said “any retailer that is unable to, on a product level, drive conversion rates up at least 25% through the use of video, is not implementing video effectively.”

Recently, eMarketer.com released a study that estimated 66.7% of US Internet users—147.5 million people—are watching video online each month. By 2014, that figure is forecast to rise to 77% of Internet users, or 193.1 million people. In the same period, online video advertising spending will surge from $1.4 billion to $5.2 billion.

Surely there will be quite a bit of experimentation in 2010 with online video, but if you are not currently using video in your marketing programs - there could be a wide loophole you are currently ignoring.

You think you know Facebook? They’re just getting started. With its latest round of plug-in updates, Facebook has unleashed a monster that means it will soon dominate the scene as the web’s most popular destination after Google.

But what does it mean for us? The major announcements at the recent F8 Developer’s Conference in San Francisco unveiled a plan to intensify and expand FB’s ever-growing empire beyond its website, and turn every site across the Internet into satellites where users can interact with friends at all times.

Social Plug-ins

The F8 conference saw a combination of plug-ins released for developers to integrate onto their sites-here’s a quick wrap-up:

• Like Button and Like Box: This allows the Like feature to be added to any piece of content, typically an entire page. Users click on these buttons to Like a site and share a link on Facebook, which is permanently stored on a user’s profile and points back to the original site.

• Activity Feed and Live Stream: These are the plug-ins that show static and dynamic activity on a site. Activity Feed displays recent Likes and comments from the site, while Live Stream shows a real-time view of activity on the site and is intended for interactive events.

• Login with Faces and Facepile: This type of publisher plug-in enhances Facebook Connect, and makes it easy and compelling to sign in by leveraging appropriate Facebook cookies and displaying faces of your Facebook friends who are already members of the service.

• Recommendations: This plug-in allows site developers to personalize recommendations for the user based on what friends and everyone else is Liking on the site. This plug-in is intended to drive users to other pages on the site.

For more on Facebook’s plug-in plan, click here

A Personalized Recommendation Engine…

It is now simpler to integrate these plug-ins on your site-they use a seamless code that binds Facebook with your website. In addition, these plug-ins have another characteristic-they became smarter.

Publishers who use the Open Graph protocol can integrate their web pages into the social graph by identifying what an object is on a page: a book, a movie, a recording artist, an event, etc.

This changes how Facebook defines and structures knowledge for the web. For example, if I were to ‘Like’ a movie on IMDB.com, that information will be stored on my Facebook page. Now, fast-forward several months, and Facebook not only feeds that information to my Facebook page, but I now receive an additional recommendation from Facebook telling me I should follow a certain actor or actress’ page because they are also in that film.
With this new plug-in release, Facebook becomes a valuable new marketing tool to help promote content to the right targets. Now, information like our favorite books, movie, sport team, song, etc., will become permanent and more widespread on our profiles.

Users… Beware?

With these updates, users will absolutely be trading privacy for personalization. It’s clear that personalization-and ultimately more information-cannot be had without users telling a system about their interests.

More than a few people have said Facebook is becoming the new Google, with access to too much information about us.

But let’s be honest about the situation-Facebook users are not going to stop using Facebook. In fact, the ability to personalize content and the overall experience will make Facebook an even richer platform for individuals who like to create their own look and feel with content that is attached to Facebook.

Advertising is a major function of the Facebook platform, and this new “experience model” for users will likely draw further targeting. When this happens, then we’ll see how much users enjoy their privacy.

Competitors… Beware the Monster.

Facebook has a mission behind this announcement-to slowly own the web one set of eyeballs at a time. With just one plug-in, connected to a 450+ million-user base, Facebook is attempting to do more than just connect people together-but people with their things, all across the web.

Competitors don’t have much of a choice but to either innovate and build against it, or more likely embrace this technology and build on top of it.

All the big players- Google, AOL, MySpace, Twitter, Yahoo!, Amazon, eBay-should be a bit worried about this. Facebook is literally cherry-picking social interactions all across the Web and bringing them to their platform.

(And Microsoft? They’ve already decided “why fight the power when you can join the fun,” and their idea of partnering is most likely the smartest move in their court.)

What’s Next for Facebook?

Open Graph will surely define how we consume content in the social web. Their system is smarter, more useful, better targeted, and reliably adaptable-more so than any social system previously.

As time goes on, developers and site publishers will come up with a bevy of applications and functions that will roll out in the next couple of years, depending on how Facebook allows developers to build on top of the Open Graph.

With this announcement, Facebook is just continuing to feed the beast. Not only are they biggest social network on the planet, Facebook is becoming the biggest network of people on the planet.

This blog entry is also posted on the Loomis Group Blog