Tracebook: Search Engines and Social Networks Make Strange Bedfellows

Mum warned me there’d be Social Networks like this.

Facebook, one of the major loves of my life, has finally got me worried. I’ve long been told I lack a healthy fear of The Man and whilst I do take a measure of pride in that, yesterday’s hot news item has got me feeling more nervy than a white pig in a Spike Lee version of Animal Farm.

In case you haven’t heard, Facebook is opening its profile listings to the public. Presently, non-registered Internet users can browse member listings at Facebook.com, albeit seeing only their names and other limited information. That’s not a big deal. All someone has to do is register with Facebook and they can see my profile in its entirety. I’m fine with that.

What I’m not fine with is that Facebook, in about a month’s time, will post profile listings on search engine results. My profile listing included. Insert alarmed emoticon here.

Full details have yet to be disclosed – in fact, I first read of this new “feature” on my Facebook homepage. Some dude at Gigaom skimmed the surface as well but overall, not too much press. There’s a mention of it on the Facebook blog, though you’d think the Facebook geeks were practically ashamed of it they way they’ve uncharacteristically provided limited information about this new development’s scope and consequences…oops, I mean benefits.

Ahem. So? Any Internet user can now find my profile on Facebook, easily as accessible as any search engine. So what if some schmuck finds me on Google?

Well my complacent friend, the difference is huge. You just gotta use long-term thinking. Personally, I see an incredible potential for:

1. Selling Out & Online Oligarchies
2. Marketing Intelligence-Gathering & Developer Abuse
3. Corruption of Web 2.0 (aka Work 2.0) & The Degredation of Facebook’s Soul
   

Selling Out & Online Oligarchies

Fact: Critics have maintained that Facebook advertisers earn extremely low conversions . While their advertisers do benefit in ways other than those gauged by classic PPC or CPM metrics, the poor conversion rate cannot be dismissed.

Search engines and social networks are inherently different creatures whose variability is slowly but surely starting to diminish,. Social networks allow users to share and distribute select information to whomever they choose and to restrict to whomever they don’t. Search engines share and distribute all information they can with whomever they’re able to. Is it just me, or do you smell conflict here?

Search engines would love to display information from social networks. Yahoo and Flickr? Google and YouTube? Billions have been spent on acquiring these companies, and for what? Just for show? Actually, just to show.

Advertisers love this. Examining a user’s nuanced behaviour on a social network reveals tons of marketable information on them. Forget basic search habits based on query inputs. They’ll be able to tell what colours capture your interest, or the average length of videos you watch, or what time of day you prefer seeing pictures of blondes rather than brunettes. And with this information, ads will be specifically tailored to suit your unique consumer type.

We’re going from demographic markets to large niche markets to segmented niche markets to markets of one. You. Think that’ll help Facebook’s conversion rates?

If traffic is traction, then social media is a V-10 engine. Search engines use social networks to beef up their results and impress the users whilst collecting fat advertising paychecks. Facebook is the Ferrari of social networks. Having refused to sell out to a single search engine, Facebook is now deciding to sell out to all of them.

Marketing Intelligence-Gathering & Developer Abuse

Fact: Facebook has spread open its API to developers everywhere, allowing anyone with a degree of technical skill to create a Facebook widget. These widget-makers have full access to a user’s information and are not encumbered by any of the liability or privacy headaches Facebook itself must endure.

So now these widget-makers can do anything. By providing users with a bevy of fancy and not-so-fancy applications, they have earned the right to poke and prod profiles profusely. And trust me, this information is incredibly valuable (read: profitable). Widget-makers include entertainment vendors (books, DVDs, electronics, etc.), online marketing companies, advertising servers, even other social networks and search engines! Anybody who is interested in traffic and branding. And who isn’t interested in traffic and branding?

Facebook can claim user-controlled privacy levels all it wants. It doesn’t matter anymore. The widget-makers have no such limitations. Combine complete profile information with searchable profile listings, and what do we have? It’s like Facebook Gone Wild on Spring Break – anything goes, and everyone can see it.

Imagine having ads targeted to you based on your Facebook information. Imagine your inbox being spammed to a spammer’s black heart’s content. Imagine the slippery slope that begins with a drop of leaked user info, trickling into a flood of developer abuse.

Why, even one’s birthday coupled with one’s name can lead to bank fraud. Financial institutions often identify customers with these two simple fields, readily available on anyone’s Facebook profile.

Now, I’ve already examined why search engines and social networks make dangerous lovers. I’ve shown you how widget-makers can violate your information like an older brother reading your diary. What would happen if a search engine created a Facebook widget?

Oops. Too late. Google’s on it. Now they have direct access to FULL profile listings and FULL user information. With 39 million registered Facebook users, it sounds like a people search engine isn’t too far off. And not just a yellow-page knock-off, but a listing that provides as much information as possible. Remember, Google caters to its advertisers, and the more information displayed to the widest audience, the more revenue earned.

Corruption of Web 2.0 (aka Work 2.0) & The Degradation of Facebook’s Soul

Fact: Facebook is becoming an online marketer’s playground. Businesses are fully exploring and exploiting its potential – even we at SearchAnyway have created a Facebook group (by the way, you should definitely check it out. Search for “SearchAnyway – PPC Search Engine”).

So what does any company with a website want? Traffic. How do they get traffic? With our two old friends, SEO and SEM, and now with the new kid SMO (social media optimization), who is schooling them all. There are social networks out there purposefully geared towards businesses and professionals, but come on. Forget the debate between Facebook’s merits versus LinkedIn’s. Any idiot can see that Facebook completely trumps LinkedIn. This is like comparing the Space Shuttle to Sputnik.

Companies could easily help their SERP by taking advantage of Facebook applications and the myriad of widgets offered. They’re not concerned with silly things such as privacy; in fact, the less private the social media components are, the better. Do we see another conflict of interest here?

The core Facebook applications such as Groups and Events and their respective features aren’t bad for companies, but aren’t great either. Facebook’s search function is fairly limited (ranking results based on the network you belong to, giving precedence to user profiles, etc.) and more often than not, Groups and Events amass users by either invitation or viral marketing.

So what’s stopping Facebook from making these applications available to search engines as well? It’s a lot less intrusive than distributing profile listings, and since a lot of these Groups and Events would love to have a wider audience, showing up on Google would seem to make sense.

In fact, the widget applications should be available via online search. Photos, videos, blog postings – “distribute and earn” is probably the motto they chant during the secret society meetings.

However, they’re all forgetting one thing – the bread and butter user.

Originally, Facebook was designed as a social network for college students. It exploded in popularity when it lifted its restriction on requiring an academic email address, and millions (39 million and counting) of users now enjoy Facebook’s services.

It’s hard to say exactly why.

I’d say 95% of the people on my Friends list are people I know in real life, and maybe 35-50% of those are actual friends. Not a huge number, but arguably much more than YouTube or Flickr or even MySpace.

I like this. I’ve recently started adding business acquaintances to my list, and I think I might soon stop. I can see the marketing potential in Facebook and it’s astounding. But that’s not what I want to use Facebook for. I get excited when a real friend of mine tags me in a photo, or writes on my wall, or sends me a PM. I don’t know why. They can easily do this in real life and if not, I’m only a text message or an email or an IM away. Why then is Facebook so alluring?

It might be because it’s a social network of people you actually like. The average Facebook users spends approximately 30 minutes a day on the site. They’re accessing the site 5 times a week. And 39 million people aren’t doing this because of the infinite marketing potential or the mind-numbing array of widgets. Logging onto Facebook is like going to a house party where you control the guest list but someone else is the host. All your friends are there, but you needn’t worry about cleaning up.

And there, of course, is the last stop on the slippery slope. Companies and organizations creating profiles for marketing purposes can only give way to users doing the same. Bloggers create whole personas and networks to write under, completely fictitious but carefully crafted to appear as real as you or I. What’s to stop Facebook users from capitalizing on this trend? Create a profile, cram it full of applications including an Affiliate Marketing widget that allows you to earn PPC commissions off ads you host (AdSense for Facebook cannot be that far off), disable any possible privacy settings, SEO your profile and bam, start earning revenue.

When those users start feeling that their privacy is being infringed upon, that the widget-makers collect too much information without check, that companies will begin utilizing Facebook applications for their own agenda, that the amount of people they actually know and like on their Friends list has been surpassed by opportunistic entrepreneurs, that “Network” has changed from a regional or organizational community to a buzz word for striking business deals and marketing oneself, Facebook will fall.