Many entertainment brands have begun experimenting with transmedia, an academic term for extended storytelling across diverse social and traditional media forms. Since I am publishing a novel this year, I decided to experiment a little with transmedia. From the extended… Read More »Experimenting with Extended Storytelling
Facebook quietly retreated from its passive sharing model two weeks ago representing a departure from its current vision.
For those unfamiliar with passive sharing, it was originally and controversially dubbed frictionless sharing when Timeline was introduced by CEO Mark Zuckerberg one year ago. Frictionless sharing applications share every read or view of a site, whether or not the person is on Facebook.
Zuckerberg’s vision of every aspect of peoples’ lives shared with their friends included frictionless sharing as a core component.
This very same vision was dealt another blow two weeks ago when European regulators struck an agreement with Facebook that forces the company to delete facial recognition data garnered from public surveillance cameras.
Read More »Facebook, a Company without a Vision
Yesterday in my weekly Washington Business Journal blog, I suggested that businesses and marketers should start investing in networks beyond Facebook.
Having watched my fair share of social networks rise and fall over the years, I feel pretty safe in saying we’re looking at an AOL-esque decline for Facebook.
We watched AOL fall from its ISP and online community peak in 2002 to what has become a struggling content holding company with a diverse brands like the Huffington Post, TechCrunch and more.
I would argue that Facebook has peaked in developed countries. Further, Facebook’s public status has exposed many weaknesses that some investors suggest begin with Mark Zuckerberg.
Like AOL, because so many stakeholders are vested in Facebook’s success (Wall Street, corporate America and those who simply love the social network) the decline will be slow, but steady, just like sand falling through an hour glass.
Since Facebook’s mandatory Timeline conversion and IPO last spring, we’ve been screwed.
In what can only be described as the coup d’etat of strategy plays, Facebook got the world and businesses hooked on its network. Then the social network leveraged its monopoly power, and pulled the ultimate bait and switch in history. Facebook implemented its Timeline interface.
Timeline sabotaged traditional brand page performance, created a money generation vehicle, and sacrificed its users privacy for business purposes.
