FaceReviews.com in Wall Street Journal
3 Comments Published by Rodney Rumford September 4th, 2007 in Facebook, Facebook Applications, Facebook Interviews, Facebook Software.
We are honored to have been in a recent Wall Street Journal article about facebook applications in the Enterprise Section: “Why So Many Want to Create Facebook Applications”. The article is about why businesses want to create facebook applications and what is to be gained by such an endeavor. You can read the full article on page B4 in the Sept. 4 print edition of the WSJ.
A short excerpt from the article: “This is a watershed event that is going to affect business and technology for many years,” much the way Microsoft Corp.’s Windows operating system did, says Rodney Rumford, editor and publisher of FaceReviews.com, a Solana Beach, Calif., company that reviews Facebook applications online and provides consulting and application-development services. “It’s a tool for people to discover [businesses] in a way they couldn’t be discovered before.”
I would like to expound in greater detail about the value of facebook applications for use as a business, branding, marketing, lead generation and customer retention & engagement tool.
The value to businesses that want to increase their touch points in any of these areas and the potential ways that they can use facebook to engage users is quite amazing. Facebook has close to 38 Million active users. They are adding ~150K new users per day.
The fastest growing segment of their audience is users that are over 26 years old. Recently referred to as “old people” in a presentation at a facebook developers garage. I had to chuckle as I am far older than that. The demographic of new users that are coming in are professionals and what one might easily refer to as “people that used to use Linked In”.
Useful facebook applications that leverage the social graph of facebook and add value and facilitate connections on facebook will be the long-term winners. Engagement with users on facebook canvas pages within applications is where businesses have a huge upside opportunity. Businesses have the opportunity to engage, and provide data and experience that is useful to the users.
These applications should also foster connections with users real world network of connections. Applications should also embrace all viral carrier mechanisms that facebook allows in order for the application to spread through the social graph in a variety of ways. It is not only about being viral, but being viral and engaging to the people that matter. Facebooks social graph, f8 platform and tools sets coupled with valuable information makes for the greatest chance for success for an application.
Success metrics can be measured in a variety of ways; depending on the specific business application objectives and goals.
One easy way to imagine how facebook works is to visualize “Online Word of Mouth Marketing” with all the traditional friction points removed. Also, imagine people being able to see what their friends saw, said, did, engaged with, and behaviors shared with virtually no effort from the participant that is spreading the message. This might help you to understand how facebook allows increased efficiency of communication in way that we have not really seen before. That is the reason that business want to embrace facebook and create applications for the fast growing website.
Make no mistake about it; facebook is no MySpace (anarchy, chaos and no structured environment). Facebook has staying power and this is not some fad; it is a fundamental shift in how users communicate and data gets shared and discovered. This is great news for all business that choose to embrace facebook properly with an application that is strategically designed to meet business objectives.
Ask around your office today; you will be surprised at how many people in your business are already on facebook. Many Sr. Level Executives are unaware of how many people from within their organization are already on facebook. We have had several clients tell us that after they did some research, they found that thousands of employees from their company were already on facebook. The trend is here to stay and will continue to grow.
Go here to learn more about our facebook consulting, strategy and application development services.
Technorati Tags: facebook, rodney rumford, facebook applications, facebook consulting, wall street journal
It was a great article, and you came across as being very intelligent. Good job!
Great article! I read that FB apps were not proving as directly profitable as some would hope, but I think this approach misses the point. Apps allow you to bootstrap onto an remarkably impressive system(DB). If no-one’s been able to generate an equally impressive stream of revenue from this, I don’t think the problem lies in the format, but in the developer/marketer.
The contests on online are interesting and easy to participate
Please suggest sites which conduct online contests .