Thursday, March 26, 2009

Panic in the Facebook corral

I always find it strange when Facebook users are referred to as customers (see here, here and here). Amidst all the bells and whistles of Web 2.0's interactiveness--not to be confused with collaboration--it's like people have forgotten one of the main rules of the media business. As Noam Chomsky reminded us years ago: the product of a newspaper company is not a newspaper, it's an audience which it then sells to advertisers. A newspaper generates its audience by providing a mix of news, features, analysis, comic strips and recipes that will bring in the largest number of readers. It takes that number, goes to advertisers and sells it.

The business of social media is exactly the same. Yes, Facebook and other social networking websites are more interactive, they are more flexible and they are more customizeable than newspapers. They have the appeareance of collaboration. But they're built on the old-media business model: user satisfaction only matters up to the point that people abandon ship. You just have to make them satisfied enough to keep your numbers up. And, since social networking systems know more about their users than newspapers know about their readers, it also becomes a question of the right kind of numbers--the right kind of people doing the right kind of things. To make a profit, the system needs to be tinkered with to achieve that balance; user enjoyment is a tool, not an end result that needs to be sought.

I like social networking sites; they let me communicate in a way that's fun and in a way I couldn't without them. But I don't and wouldn't pay for them. I accept they have limits and strategies that won't suit me--I accept it because they're free. At a certain point, their obligation to make a buck through partners and advertising might make their limits and other machinations untenable for me. Just as a newspaper might pull a favourite comicstrip, if Facebook were to invade my privacy a bit too much or take away too much control over my information flow or make the thing too ugly, I might give it up, cancel my subscription so to speak. Unlike a chicken in a factory farm--and the chicken does see some benefits in regular meal times--I can leave when I want.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thanks for the comment!