A recent article in Time prompts an idea. It seems Facebook would like to place a “like” tag on every web page created. The prospect has two plusses (at least in Facebook’s opinion): first, tagging a page you like allows you to recommend information or a service more easily to friends. Secondly, Facebook can mine this information to create even more targeted advertising to you and your friends.
Many write on topics of privacy and Facebook. In my opinion, on balance, Facebook is benign. I am more sensitive than most about privacy and web privacy, but ultimately Facebook only serves up information you “opt” into. At worst, Facebook is lazy about assuming that you always want to share your profile, likes, and preferences rather than keeping that between friends. This always benefits Facebook. Most times, though, information Facebook culls is rather impersonal.
But more subtle issues seem to be emerging. Facebook assumes that I want to explicitly be tethered to my friends at all times (and vice versa), that I want to share all my likes and desires with them (via advertising as well as profile updates), and that only Facebook (and not Myspace or Twitter or some other site) is and should be the only mechanism for broadcasting my updates. Furthermore, Facebook is probably right, most people are more than happy to tag “like” on a web page. And, most troubling, other sites (news, blogging, commercial sites) are very willing to go along with this.
It’s really these assumptions that make me shy away and dislike Facebook. I have a Facebook account to be sure, but I find the site an inhospitable place. Time‘s article is just another reason for me to discontinue or scale back my use of Facebook.
I like things. But hitting a button designed only for Facebook (or any other single site) is robbing me of valuable information and not compensating me accordingly. Also, it irks me that there is not “dislike” button. This makes sense of course—the power of a dislike button is negative advertising and no money is made telling someone what I don’t use. Dedicated site promotion tags like Facebook’s have always been clunky and terrible. Does anyone really use Yahoo’s Buzz tag? And certainly such a tag is no better than Google’s loathed Buzz service.
When I like something, I usually tell people. I don’t need Facebook sending that information out for me. Most times we tag an article or page or person with “like,” not because we recommend them, but rather as an expression of momentary interest or wry sarcasm or even sophomoric time wasting. Example: I recently tagged a Facebook page for the virtuous Bidet. This was a goof. I wasn’t making a recommendation but rather hoping this little jest would brighten someone’s day. Supposing I did the same thing on a non-Facebook page, tagging an article for instance with “like”. The new tagging scheme would clearly assume that I want to tell the world about my admiration for the bidet. Friends would get “suggestions” about bidets based on my tag. Sponsored ads may start showing up on my facebook page: Buy this toilet. Update your bathroom. Subscribe to this magazine on bathroom renovation. Who knows what else.
Today’s consumers are a savvy lot. We know Facebook is implementing this scheme to increase its ad revenue, not to enhance the service. The new “like” tag continues the devolution of the web from unabridged information source to monitored served marketing content. In general, people would not mind this if the marketing meets our needs or is relatively inconspicuous. But when has a site like Facebook ever met its users’ commericial needs or ran advertising that was inconspicuous?
One other item alluded to in the article—it seems Facebook is trying to move into “real” space. It created a chipped card that tracks its user’s movements and distributed it at the recent F8 developer’s conference. Dubbed Facebook Presense, the card was unheralded, but seems too powerful to ignore. I can see this smart card as a non-evasive way of finding out what stores and locations Facebook’s members frequent. Where they live and how they spend. Again, this is all done in the name of increasing marketing revenue, not to be Big Brother. But the implications seem no less important when a “like” tag is used to follow you around the web than a chipped card is used to follow you around your neighborhood. In the end, whether you want to be Big Brother or not, so much information, so willingly given, ends up making you very powerful.
Filed under: Social Media, f8, facebook, marketing, privacy, Social Media, Time Magazine
