Dave’s Answer:

In its quest to be all things to every user, Facebook has again tweaked its interface, adding a feature that Yahoo Answers has had for eons, that Google’s experimented with variously, that’s been part of LinkedIn for a while, and that’s obviously near and dear to my heart with Ask Dave Taylor: the ability to ask your followers and fans a question.

On Facebook, it’s called “Ask Question”, ingeniously enough, and it’s actually pretty neat how they’ve integrated it into the newsfeed and interface, though I’m sure not everyone agrees. Maybe we should ask them!

More seriously, I will also say that in the week or two since the feature was released, I haven’t seen a single question show up in my news, so perhaps it’s not getting the widespread adoption that the Facebook team were hoping?

Anyway, on your main page, instead of the status box ready for input, there’s now a little strip of links along the top, one of which is “Ask Question”:

You can see here that I’ve clicked on “Ask Question” and typed in what I believe is a perfectly reasonable question (at least if you’ve seen the daft film Monty Python and the Holy Grail). To submit the question, I click on the “Ask Question” button and, since it’s the first time I’ve asked a question…

Yeah, yeah, I’m good with this. I click on “Ask Question” and it offers the ability for me to add photos, add a further description, even turn it into a poll (that’s cool!). I can also add topics, which are presumably keywords, but I’ll skip it all and just choose “Done”.

Now in my newsfeed – and presumably that of everyone I’m friends with – this shows up:

A short time later my friend Steve pops up with the correct answer:

Notice here that I can vote the answer helpful / not helpful by clicking on the buttons. Nice. In fact, I like Q&A systems that let you vote on the value of an answer, so I have to say that Facebook took its time and did a very nice job implementing the Ask Question feature. Now the real question: is anyone going to use it?

Comments

While I don’t necessarily believe in the “value” of the page calculated by this tool per se, it is a handy way to put a number to a page based on that page’s activity—looking at both post volume and the reaction to those posts. When you analyze the data this way, only three of the largest pages stay in the top 50. (Actually, it’s 51, as I inadvertently left Starburst off the Top 50 list. They are included here.) Here’s the list.

Key findings

As you can see, the list reorders dramatically. Some key findings:

• Passion products (like Oreos, Slurpees and Converse) may be able to grow fan bases quickly, but that does not automatically translate into page value;
• The pages with the highest value posted the most. While this isn’t surprising, it shows the effort required;

• All 5 of the top 5 most valuable pages had posts on Sunday and each one has custom tabs;
• While each of the top 5 have custom tabs, only 3 of the top 5 have set a tab other than the wall as the landing tab. This surprised me a bit.

• Each of the bottom 5 posted quite infrequently, except McDonalds.

• McDonalds (in the bottom 5) had seemingly random posts, each of which links to a different burger.

Value by fan

When you sort by dollar value per fan, the top 50 turns practically upside down. Here are the top 10 by that metric, with their rank by fan count in parenthesis:

1. Xbox, $7.08 (51)
2. Dr. Pepper, $7.04 (30)
3. Monster Energy, $5.30 (43)
4. adidas Originals, $4.57 (14)
5. Walt Disney World, $4.50, (46)
6. Breast Cancer Awareness, $4.28 (48)
7. iTunes, $3.31 (10)
8. YouTube, $3.27 (4)
9. H&M, $3.27 (24)
10. Playstation, $2.98, (49)

Xbox barely made the list in terms of size, coming in at 50th 51st, but they’re motivating their base better than anyone else. Dr. Pepper shares a strange collection of very product-centric updates with their fans, but the fans love them. And adidas Originals has both a partnership with Snoop Dog on their page and exclusive product announcements—a good mix of celebrity and insider info.

Real winners

The real winners on this list, then, are the pages that combine both high fan count and high value, as they are doing the best job of converting those fans into action. (Of course, we don’t have insight into the impact this is having on their business objectives, but if you can consistently motivate your fans, I have to think your opportunity to impact your business is enhanced.)

From that angle, the pages that have impressed me so far are:

• YouTube (#4 in size, #1 in value, #8 in value/fan)
• Skittles (#5 in size, #6 in value, #14 in value/fan)
• iTunes (#10 in size, #4 in value, #7 in value/fan)
• Facebook (#1 in size, #2 in value, #19 in value/fan)
• Victoria’s Secret (#9 in size, #11 in value, #18 in value/fan)

Of all of these, I’m most impressed with Skittles. YouTube, iTunes and Facebook have the advantage of a near limitless supply of content. Victoria’s Secret has, well, other advantages. But Skittles does not.

Little blobs of coated sugar, they got heckled a bit for their Skittles.com social takeover in early 2009. But it’s clear from this that they have not taken those fans for granted. They’ve found a way to keep them entertained.

Not the 50 most valuable

Keep in mind, this is a rank of the 50 largest branded Facebook pages, by value. It’s not the 50 most valuable branded Facebook pages. If it were, it would look a lot different, but it would require analyzing hundreds more pages individually.

For example, one of our clients, Windows, has 626,197 fans (as of Sunday, 7/11) and a value of $2,296,080. That would rank it 7th in value per fan ($3.67) and 28th in total value. But since it’s not big enough to be on the current Top 50 list, it’s also not on the “value” list. (But I think we’ll let them know nevertheless.)

What surprised you when you saw how the Top 50 re-ranked by value?

Comments

Facebook has built its brand on pushing the idea that members should share real information so real people can connect to other real people, and not to some persona that is covered up in a neat social media moniker. As a result, people have come to trust the site as a place that is safe and exists for the user.

Well, that was then and this is now. Before the new policy took effect, most of the data that was given to Facebook was kept pretty private and there was not a tremendous concern about the data beyond the normal “it’s the Internet and nothing is really private anyway” talk. What Facebook has done now is to turn their backs on the folks that they built their data community on by saying that privacy is so 2005. In order to get your privacy back, you need to manage it yourself because the doors of the barn have been flung wide open.

Well, this move is just puzzling to me. I realize that there is a need to make money, but if this is how the master plan was laid out, then someone was asleep at the wheel. Since when was it good business to build trust with people over years and then pull the rug out from underneath them for your one-sided benefit?

Now the government is being called in, which is never a good thing.

So what may have Facebook done here? Let’s think about it.

1. Pulled a Tiger Woods? Take a pretty good image and do something sleazy and what do you get? Discontent. Lower approval ratings. Nothing good comes of it an act that is disrespectful of others.
2. Shown their true colors? Those true colors may be green, for the money which has been put in front of the community. No one is saying that Facebook shouldn’t make money. In fact, it is quite the opposite. They need to make money to show that social media is a profitable business. Sometimes, how you make the money (like selling out your users) can hurt your efforts.
3. Moved toward MySpace territory? While admittedly a stretch, what if Facebook is simply the bigger version of MySpace and it has made a second or third generation social media business mistake that will make it go the way of Friendster, or even worse, be pushed to the fringes of relevance like MySpace.
4. Shown its age? Let’s face it. Facebook was started by a very young guy and he shows his age more often than not. Maybe he is being swayed by counsel that is not in the best interest of Facebook, but he simply isn’t experienced enough to know differently. Being smart and being experienced are two completely different things. Mark Zuckerberg is definitely smart. The other? Not so much.
5. Created a free monster? Maybe there is no real way to turn the switch on a pay model after being free for so long. Maybe this is just an example of being too big and too ubiquitous. People are used to everything just “being” with Facebook. Now as the company is required to make moves to be profitable (which it has not done yet) it is learning the hard lesson of its model.
6. Assumed people wouldn’t pay attention? This is the most insidious of considerations because Facebook and their terms of service have always been a real PR play. They know full well that most people don’t pay attention to Facebook policies as evidenced by not reaching the required 7,000 comments recently to put a TOS issue to a vote. Maybe they were naïve enough to think that if the users of Facebook are just not paying attention then they could CTA (cover their a%$) with some privacy announcements and never look back.
7. Realized that Google really is in control because of search? With Twitter opening their feed to the major engines, Facebook was up against it to a degree. It was forced to sacrifice one of its pillars of trust (privacy) for the demand to index the entire world in real time.

What’s your take on this? Is it an over-reaction? Did Facebook do any real damage in the long or short term to itself? Will we all forget this in a month or so? I don’t have any answers to this but my suspicion is that this is not the end of this discussion. Not by a long shot.

Comments

But this time, Facebook is finally saving someone’s bacon. Or, oddly enough, his pancakes. As the New York Times says,

The message on Rodney Bradford’s Facebook page, posted at 11:49 a.m. on Oct. 17, asked where his pancakes were. The words were typed from a computer in his father’s apartment in Harlem.

At the time, the sentence, written in street slang, was just another navel-gazing, cryptic Facebook status update — meaningless to anyone besides Mr. Bradford. But when Mr. Bradford, 19, was arrested the next day as a suspect in a robbery at the Farragut Houses in Brooklyn, where he lives, the words took on greater importance. They became his alibi.

One minute after his status update, someone in Brooklyn was mugged. The article isn’t exactly clear on how Bradford was named as a suspect in the mugging, but he was arrested for the crime, even though his father and step-mother both said he was with them in Harlem (and Harlem != Brooklyn, if you’re not familiar with NYC).

When Bradford’s lawyer told the Brooklyn DA about the status update, the DA’s office subpoenaed Facebook’s records to verify that he wasn’t at the scene of the crime. The IP address resolved to Bradford’s father’s home—and the charges against Bradford were dropped.

The ADA realizes that anyone with his username and password could have posted the status update, but, as Bradford’s lawyer says, “This implies a level of criminal genius that you would not expect from a young boy like this; he is not Dr. Evil.”

So it just goes to show: maybe all those pointless status updates aren’t so pointless after all.

What do you think? Can status updates (with IP records) be taken as legal alibis?

Comments

Earlier this year, we speculated on when Facebook would launch APIs for Facebook Ads to allow performance marketers to automate ad management. Well, it appears it’s happening now: recently, Facebook started beta testing its new advertising APIs with just a few agencies around the world.

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the tests, saying that it will “open up to some more advertisers in the next week or so.”

This is the kind of thing that could give larger advertisers the kinds of tools that are expected from real companies. In other words, Facebook is modeling Google and others in taking the necessary steps to make it easier for advertisers to do what they best: advertise. Based on the last post I did which was bemoaning the near indifference of Twitter’s leadership regarding revenue generation this is refreshing.

Smith explains further

Because those tools have never existed for Facebook Ads, performance advertisers have had to either manage their Facebook Ads campaigns manually, or hack their own tools. Now, Facebook is testing simple yet powerful APIs that allow agencies and advertisers to create thousands of ads with different creative and targeting permutations and optimize bids in real time.

So while there is nothing to see quite yet there is at least something to look forward to. We are in a day and age where the changes in the marketing and advertising landscape are outpacing the ability to take advantage of them. Social media is sweeping everyone away with its constant talk of potential but now it is maturing in some areas to the point to start to deliver. We are starting to get past the sizzle and Facebook is looking to finally serve the steak.

Let’s hope this is just the start of this kind of improvement on the horizon. Lord knows we need it.

Comments

As Facebook begins testing greater and greater publicity, with user controls, the EU begins demanding more and more of social networks’ privacy policies—or, that’s what we think their vague regulations are trying to do, anyway.

There are several specific policies that social networks such as MySpace and Facebook, which both have large European audiences, will have to comply with: automatically setting users’ privacy to the highest level (giving users the option to opt out of that extreme level of privacy), allow users to limit the data shared with third-parties (including advertisers and applications), and limit the use of “sensitive information,” including race, religion and political views, in behavioral targeting.

However, many of the regulations, like most laws, are constructed broadly. While broad language in laws avoids the problem of overspecificity, sometimes it becomes difficult for constituents to follow the law. I mean, do you want to define exactly what “legitimate purposes” a network must have to collect personal information?

On the other hand, how could the EU specifically name all the legitimate purposes for collecting data within its regulation? Is targeting birthday-centered promotions from advertisers a “legitimate purpose”? Is enabling your friends to send you virtual birthday gifts “illegitimate”?

What do you think? How can Facebook balance its users’ (and its own legal) need for privacy with its inherent purpose—friending everyone you’ve ever known since elementary school?

Comments

On the Facebook blog, founder Mark Zuckerberg outlines the new policy with the crux of it being

You will have two options on the ballot, as shown below: 1) the new Facebook Principles and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities (SRR), which incorporate feedback from users and experts received during the 30-day comment period, or 2) the current Terms of Use, which were developed by Facebook and did not go through an outside comment period.

Let’s cut to the chase. The only way the new terms get instituted is if at least 30% of active users of Facebook at the time of the vote actually vote at all. That’s a pretty tall order considering that most of the Facebook users I know would be surprised to know there is even a blog. Oh and by the way, if this particular opportunity is not met with enthusiasm it will be business as usual for the most part.

If these new documents are approved, all future changes to the Statement of Rights and Responsibilities will go through the same process of notice and comment, and may be put to a vote if enough people comment. Even if these new proposed documents are defeated, we will still find ways to involve you in the governance process; however, this involvement will need to be explicitly stated in a future version of the Terms of Use.

So if you are really interested in having a say in the future of Facebook governance you better get your vote in before April 23rd. Of course, unless 30% of the active users (which is a large and undefinable number that only, you guessed it, Facebook knows anyway) are involved it’ll be just like old times. See you at the polls!

Comments

In an article from Internet News the discussion is about some changes to Citysearch that have been asked for by its users for quite some time. These changes now incorporate social media and mobile opportunities to bring this Internet standard up to speed. CEO Jay Herrati says that these changes have been a long time coming.

In an interview with the New York Times, Herratti admitted the changes were overdue. “We got a little bit stale. Our consumers were telling us to get modern,” he told the Times. “We need to become the next-generation local guide.”

The biggest upgrade is the ability to for users to connect to their Facebook profiles using Facebook Connnect. This will enable users to write and share reviews with their Facebook friends. The weight of getting a review from a friend in “real time” will be even more powerful than one that is done from a source that is completely unknown to the searcher. Robert Scoble discusses how Facebook is really headed in the right direction despite the backlash of users regarding its redesign and he discusses the power of this “friend review” concept. Citysearch could take advantage of this connection more than most.

In addition to the Facebook connection the service is expanding from its current 150 local city guides to over 75,000 local communities and neighborhoods. This could get interesting. Most agree that local search is still relatively untapped because of the amount of work it requires to provide the details that local destinations have to offer. That amount of locations makes one wonder just how detailed the new locations will be.

With mobile search growing in popularity and people looking for more information in a “just in time” delivery mode maybe Citysearch will breathe new life into its offering that will put them on the edge of the next wave. Whatever the result these changes should at least take care of the request for the service to be more modern.

Comments