Facebook's privacy issues will be its downfall

Sparked most by some of the changes announced at the Facebook F8 conference the last couple of weeks have seen another flurry of comment and debate on Faceboook's privacy changes. 

Search Engine Land recently  stumbled across the fact that that typing "how do I" into Google now brings up "how do I delete my Facebook account" as one of the top searches.

They also illustrate the increased search volumes for people wishing to delete their Facebook account.

Andrew Brown's blog on the Guardian website makes the excellent point that if people think that they are Facebook's customers they are very much mistaken.  People are Facebook's product and it is the advertisers who constitute Facebook's customers.  Now Facebook is a commercial organisation and, in order to maintain a free service for members, there really is only an advertising model at their disposal to generate revenue.  I don't think many people would argue with that.  The key issue is the way in which member's data and privacy has been eroded over time through numerous privacy changes that been have less-than-transparent to members.  What most angers Facebook users is that with each new update the default Facebook privacy settings work in the favour of the advertiser and against the privacy of the user.

Andrew Brown  points to a great graphic on The New York Times' website that illustrates the complexity of privacy options that Facebook users now need to navigate through together with the every-lengthening privacy policy itself. Some of these automatic opt-ins appear to contravene UK data protection legislation.

As a result there is a growing interest in alternative social networking models whereby the network's members have greater control of their data. One site receiving some attention is Diaspora.  Diaspora defines itself as a privacy aware, personally controlled, distributed open source social network. The development team behind Diaspora are four New York University students.  They claim that because social networking has only been around for the latter half of the decade we are yet to fully understand the privacy implications of providing personal information to a central 'hub' (such as Facebook) that then facilitates communications and content between people.  Diaspora is different because as a peer-to-peer network each user runs their own 'node' (called a 'Seed') within the Diaspora network. As a result, the user retains ownership and control of their data.  
However the fundamental question remains: how will Diaspora make money? Without a subscription or licence fee for users the only realistic option is an advertiser-funded model  The temptation for the Diaspora team will surely be the same as currently facing Facebook: how to serve the needs of the advertiser to maximize revenues.

Concerns over privacy issues may well start people rethinking their need for a Facebook account - but whether an alternative model exists remains to be seen. 
 
Diaspora launches this September.

Could this be the first internet-powered US President?

If you’ve followed the US election campaigns (and it's been hard not to) over the last few months, one thing that was truly amazing about Barack Obama’s campaign was his use of the internet and digital media.

Of course, we are all used to online political campaigning even in the UK (how could we forget David Cameron’s infamous Blog?) but Obama’s campaign has been significant in how he has used the very best practices from the world of online e-commerce applied it to raising funds for his campaign.

He has used every online device to encourage voters to donate: from mobile ring tones, to his own blog, email updates from the campaign manager &, of course, social networking. In fact Obama was dubbed the “Master of Facebook Politics” by the New York Times with about 1.5 million online ‘friends’ (compare this to ‘only’ 142,000 friends for John McCain).

All this has managed to translate the huge public enthusiasm for him directly into cash. To put this into context, in February of this year his campaign raised a record-setting $55 million— with $45 million donated over the Internet—without Obama hosting a single fund-raiser himself. The money just came rolling in and has allowed Obama to campaign harder and deeper than McCain - just look at Obama's 30min election advert over the weekend.

Why is this important? Because it’s a great demonstration of how online engagement & interaction can be used to drive consumer action. Now that Obama has seen that he can drive cash donations, the next challenge is to turn that into votes. It’ll certainly be interesting to watch.

http://www.barackobama.com/index.php
http://www.new.facebook.com/barackobama?ref=s&refurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.new.facebook.com%2Fs.php%3Fq%3Dbarack%2Bobama%26init%3Dq

Can businesses actually make money with virals?

• Indirectly, yes. Viral marketing is simply about creating word of mouth, developing communications that raise awareness and drive engagement with a brand in the hope that it will be passed on. The same ATL success metrics of ‘awareness’ and ‘engagement’ still apply.
• Word of mouth marketing is THE most effective marketing tool

What should marketers bear in mind when considering a viral for their company - Dos and Don'ts?

• The biggest mistake that marketers make when creating viral campaigns is to think that a brief to ‘create a viral campaign’ will create one campaign or idea that will ‘go viral’ – the essence of what creates a great viral can be hard to pin down and therefore a number of different routes should be created and perhaps, one out of every 20 ideas will get traction and hit that all-important ‘tipping-point’
• Ensure that viral is considered throughout development of all marketing elements to maximise impact and cost effectiveness – not just created as an ‘add-on’
• Viral is NOT simply:
  • uploading the latest TV ad to YouTube (unless it’s a gorilla playing the drums…..)
  • simply creating a member-get-member mechanic or ‘send to a friend’ functionality – and does not even have to be about creating a ‘piece’ (ie a video, application etc). The US TV show has hit #1 in the DVD charts simply from the amount of online buzz and word of mouth content seeded throughout online communities and the press.
• Therefore, how to seed the viral should be considered as much as the viral concept
• Lastly measurement is key – and again this is something that should be planned at the outset – there are many ‘buzz marketing’ tools that can help in the tracking of campaigns and their impact

What makes a good viral?

• Viral ‘pieces’ need to be easy to send on – it sounds like a basic requirement, but it’s often missed
• Content and engagement is key: virals must be: engaging, funny, sexy or a weird for users to send on
• Remember virals don’t necessarily have to be complex pieces: consider the recent Gap virals (and the successful if a little costly Thresher email from previous years) that simply offered customers a good deal (eg 30% off) on a given day / product