Face[book] it, we all want to be liked, loved, admired and recognized. Does it really matter whether you are my Friend or we Like each other? In the end this interweaving of semantics and metaphors is leaving me a bit, well, not interested in using Facebook.
While most folks are focusing on the whole Like debate, I seem to be looking at the same old emails coming through asking if I want to be someones Fan. “XXX became a fan of XXX on Facebook and suggested you become a fan too.”
I don’t see Facebook moving away from some of the core functions of their platform or the language used in some of their marketing. What is new, how the platform will be used and what users can expect going forward with the ability to move beyond the platforms community and current sphere of influence.
What was once a straightforward platform to connect with old classmates is now an Orwellian nightmare beginning to unfold. While one of my co-workers was tweaking some Facebook Graph API code, we started to experiment with profile data and were instantly struck by its blatant creepiness.
True, we are marketers and the more we can slice and dice the segmentation’s and behavioral aspects of our target audiences the better return on investment in advertising dollars we garner for our client base. What is at question, is how much we need to know to be effective in our jobs, acting on our clients behalf.
The Like button now deployed on over 50,000 sites as of this writing will add dimensionally to the already flush data points available on a users profile to marketers. How all this information will be used remains to be seen.