Sunday, October 4, 2009

Facebook as the Mall

As a public space, I think Facebook is more like the mall, than the town green.

The purpose of the town green is simply as a common space.  If a group with a controversial social message wants to gather there, they can, regardless of what their message may be.

The purpose of the mall, and of Facebook, is to sell you things.  Social functions may take place in either location, but when push comes to shove, the reason the mall exists is to get you to spend money at The Gap.  The reason Facebook exists (so far) is to get you to look at advertisements.  To be fair, this is also the reason most newspapers, TV stations, and radio stations also exist: To sell ads and make money.  Both Facebook and the mall are for-profit companies.

The issue of "monetizing" the web has come up in class and in the readings several times.  A look at Facebook's site for advertisers shows one way that the company has broken even, and hopes to make a profit: By using the troves of data people enter about themselves to allow advertisers to target their media buys.

If you enter your birthday, advertising can be age-specific, even to the point of appearing ON A USER'S BIRTHDAY.  Location, Age, Sex, Keywords, Education, Workplace, Relationship Status, Relationship Interests, and Languages.

So an endorsement by Bob Dylan can appear to users aged 51 to 59, and an endorsement by Kristen Stewart can appear to women 18 to 22. Targeting based on Keywords would allow the advertiser to put these endorsements next to any web site that mentions "Blood on the Tracks", or "Twilight."

People can be targeted by college, or even major, which tells advertisers a lot about a user's likely income, and allows advertisers to know who is a doctor, or a lawyer, for instance.

Because people enter so much information about themselves on social media sites, advertising can be very targeted, and presumably more successful.

* * * * *

Some advertisers are taking another approach to social media like Facebook, by hoping to make the users into the advertising vehicle, according to the Advertising Age article.  I don't think I would do this for a for-profit company like Red Robbin.  If I am an advertising medium, I should get paid more than a "possible cash prize."  And as an individual I would be very reluctant to rent out my reputation.  But I might participate in something like this for a non-profit, or for a business that had somehow done something really spectacular to help me (Example:  If I left my IPod Nano in a restaurant, it got swept into the trash, they went into the dumpster and pulled it out for me.  But I don't own an IPod Nano, so I guess I will not be endorsing any businesses any time soon.)

I think an Advertising Age commenter on the bottom of the article makes a valid point:
"By ann | Darnestown, MD September 30, 2009 11:50:20 am:  The devil here is in the details of the survey practice. IMHO, rewarding someone for taking a survey with "possible cash prizes" then asking them to fill out a recommendation isn't any different from awarding "possible cash prizes" for recommendations. It's a pretty transparent bribery scheme. I agree recommendations work better than fans but when a company pays for those recommendations how can a consumer trust them???"

3 comments:

  1. Can't Facebook be both a town green and a mall? What I mean by that is that, yes, Facebook does use its users' information to sell them things, but it also provides a space for discussion and for community to come together.

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  2. The mall allows people to gather, walk around, and hang out. Mall owners are okay with this, because having a pleasant atmosphere will bring in more customers. But the reason the mall exists is to make money. Its very architecture is designed to encourage customers to buy things -- Sometimes they even minimize the appearance of the exits, so the customers don't think about leaving.

    The Facebook applications I have used seem designed to maximize the time spent with them, and to get you to have more people use the application. Farmville requires you to go to the game regularly, or else your digital "animals" will suffer. Mafia Wars rewards you for spending time with the game by giving you energy and experience points, the longer your sit at the game and push a few buttons to do "jobs." It also gives you more power if you bring more people into the game as part of your mafia crew. The reason the games, and Facebook itself exists, is to provide more eyeballs for advertising, keep them there for longer periods, and collect information about the users for monetization later.

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  3. A town green does not have a profit motive, it just exists as a public space, and it is not trying to make a buck off you.

    That is different from a mall, and from Facebook.

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