Comment: Re:Facebook is a utility. (Score 1) 192
I beg to agree to disagree. Everyone may have it, even the people who say they don't, but from both a capitalistic and consumer perspective it doesn't help the value of Facebook.
For those who have Facebook who wish to not use it do so out of necessity E.G me. I have a Facebook account which is a complete sock puppet (yes against the Terms of Use please ban me I'm so worried) which I use as a developer to create Facebook integration services for my customers', which is hardly ever. My wife uses Facebook to communicate with friends but holds no loyalty and is waiting for the next big thing to take everyone off Facebook so she doesn't have to see any more painful ads polluting her screen.
Do either of us give value to Facebook? Maybe my wife does because she keys data into it about herself but even then she states that half of what she puts in is crap. She refuses to click on the ads so no value there and as for that 90% of the stuff she keys into Facebook you certainly cannot use that data effectively and sell it with guarantee that the information is in anyway useful and I think this statement goes for MOST Facebook users.
See, Facebook is all about socialising and everyone has a social side, likewise everyone has a personal side. Facebook's BIGGEST downfall is assuming the both are the same. People put information on Facebook that they want the rest of the world (network) to see. They do so because they want to show certain information. When Graph search came out and Facebook was expecting people to key in their dentists for example I was like "never gonna work" and it's because of this very reason.
So what is the value of Facebook.
a) It holds an unregulated metric of data which is purely dependent on the "desire" of the user, this is wholly proven by celebrities or any public figure because they wont have their Mom added to a public Facebook account which has 1,000's of fans a linked into.
b) That metric of data can only be used as a significant speculative indicator for marketers. Where as Google has built quite cleverly an affective metric in the ways to gauge popularity of websites and information. In fact there is an entire industry out there called the SEO / SEM industry based on these metrics.
c) Social Networking as an industry has legs but what we've found is that it's not with FaceBook. FaceBook works great for selling travel, restaurants or places of interest and even events. Not so good for retail or actual products and absolutely useless for B2B sales.
So all that's left is the mobile market and this is like Apple deciding to sell routers and server hardware, not a strong point of theirs. The mobile market is held by the device manufacturers and more particularly the SEO / SEM industry.
The only real way for FB to make any long term money is to abandon social networking and use the money they have which is kinda what they are doing. Graph was a good idea but Google Places has been there for years now and is directly built into your phone. FaceBook Home was a small half backed investment trying to take on the likes of Apple and Samsung and it really buckles chance.