Is Facebook trying to become the Internet?

Over the past 6 months, Facebook’s meteoric rise to the top spot on the web has brought about a couple of interesting developments.

From watching the TV, Cinema and generally keeping my eyes open when walking around (does help when avoiding lamp posts too), I have noticed a trend for businesses big and small to change the way they are advertising/marketing themselves online.

More and more I see ‘Find us on Facebook… facebook.com/myshop’ rather than ‘visit our website… http://www.mynotrealshop.com’. Have companies now started to use Facebook more as a miniweb rather than spend money on their own websites?

Will we soon be seeing Facebook search competing against Google as more companies adopt FB as their virtual home?

With 500m+ users it seems an obvious choice to try and hop on in there and pimp your stuffs but how far can it go?

I was zapping away yesterday evening and came across a WWE transmission (ahh those memories of days long gone…). I watched for a couple of minutes, and between two matches they proudly announced having more than 5.000.000 FB friends, more than the NBA, etc, etc.
Without doubt having access to a 500m+ audience is interesting, but if I want information about something, I wouldn’t use FB search. I use FB search to find friends. But maybe that’s just me?

Thats kind of the direction I was looking at Guido, will it become more than just searching for friends now that companies are using it as a main marketing and promotion tool?

It won’t be easy. There’s a big difference between searching your own data, and searching the entire web.

facebook sux majorly

if you’ve been on there for any considerable period of time, just try searching for that link you posted a couple months ago

businesses are keen to hop onto ~any~ bandwagon that gives them more eyeballs

as someone once said (on their myspace page), “this too shall pass”

I think that they have recognised that it is a good way of actually engaging their clientele rather than all the communication being one way.

Hmmmm. Gotta disagree. I don’t use it for personal stuff, but I think that if you are a business that ignores Facebook then you’re a fool. The average person uses FB 7 hours per month (as opposed to 1.5 for Google). If you think about the number of people that DON’T use it, then there are a hell of a lot of us using it for WAY more than 7 hours. That is a LOT of advertising exposure.

disagree all you want, you obviously aren’t using facebook for anything other than advertising :wink:

in order for facebook to “become” the internet, it’s gotta improve in ~so~ many areas where right now it just plain sux, and even though businesses can have a quaint little “fan page” that can garner “likes” from so many people, that doesn’t make it anywhere close to the quality of stuff you can get off the real internet

I’d say it depends on the audience you’re targeting. If it’s a very young crowd, then an excessive use of Facebook, commercially and otherwise, might have a huge impact on ROI. I don’t know about elderly people. I’m 34 and I can say that I feel far too old for that kind of stuff. I’ve used Facebook only once, and that was to sign up. After that, I’ve never visited again, nor do I visit Facebook sites of other people or firms. I don’t know if that’ll change for me, but I don’t know of anyone in my family or friends who use Facebook. It just doesn’t seem to “click” with us.

I’ve said the same thing about Twitter though, and Twitter has grown on me and I actually quite like it (not so much for personal use, however) but to stay in touch with people who share similar interests.

I don’t use it for advertising at all…

I’m surprised Facebook haven’t come up with their own “browser” yet.

An iFrame on the page with some address bar controls around it - then you can browse other web pages without having to look away from the news feed, chat window, etc. Then Facebook essentially becomes the browser chrome.

oh, sorry, my apologies :blush:

i must have you mixed up with the person who looks after http://www.facebook.com/sitepoint

Out with it Rudy… what’s your point? I’m clearly missing it… :wink:

MY purpose for running that page (which includes no advertisements) is to try and engage a community with a wider reach than those that just use forums…
Unless I’m mistaken, that’s a legitimate way to use social media!

I personally don’t wanna see this happen.
You search through search engines, you social-network through social networks. Just stick what you are and everything will just be simpler and easier.

The simple answer is “yes, but not how you think.”

Facebook is trying to become the Internet not through business pages, but through apps. Entire websites are now created using Facebook Connect as their membership component. This allows Facebook to essentially dictate the direction those websites go in.

Further, it requires that Facebook exist for a growing part of the Internet to continue functioning. Facebook Connect has beat out OpenID, and will become the predominant method of people logging in to websites (including forums like this) within only a few years. XenForo has implemented a basic FB Connect protocol Expect vBulletin to be majorly revamping their software with FB as a basis for membership.

It’s an attractive proposition - to have a singular integrated identity for your entire web presence as an individual - everything you do online controlled from a single FB account, and shared seamlessly across all applications you use. Attractive, for its simplicity, and yet scary, for the “small town” loss of anonymity on the web. Facebook is pushing the “attractive” part under the growing concept that “privacy is antiquated”.

Either they will change the way much of the world thinks, or they will go under. I’m thinking the former. It’s already beginning.

not to make a big deal of it, but that page, and all the efforts behind it, ~is~ advertising, and calling it “engaging a community” and “using social media” doesn’t change that fact, not for me, sorry :slight_smile:

in any case, the idea of facebook “becoming” the internet, well, that’s nowhere close to happening, because while businesses do, sadly, try to capitalize on facebook’s popularity by engaging their communities, facebook itself still sux majorly in too many areas

well… when we talk about facebook i think its a little bit trendy as compare to google… google is everlasting search engine…as we talk about companies who will primary use facebook as their virtual page is just setting a plateform for their customers to get togather on a single stage.

but for me the the big G is awsome…

Facebook is tryingt to beat out Google - but guess what? What if Google buys out myspace and works on it? It could happen seeing how Myspace is for sale now as well - but quite frankly, I see Google/Facebook dominating the internet for a while.

It’s a brainwashing tool but if enough people get brainwashed into thinking it’s ‘normal’ then they have succeed in gaining significant market share.

I assume the 7 hour was actual users of Facebook itself verses other top branded media companies thus giving a skewed representation. Though in context it shows some people have an unhealthy addiction.

Yes, I’d agree they have a partially captive audience. Hence marketing guys will be laughing at getting people to come to them instead of them having advertise their own website and brand. Create a good illusion and some people will believe the hype is genuine and won’t realise how they are being manipulated into using FB.

It won’t make a lick of difference to Facebook.

Hey everyone, let’s go over to MySpace because Google owns it. I’ll meet you there after I finish transferring these 500 pics, wall posts, etc… But you go first because otherwise it’s a waste of my time.

Facebook is anywhere on the web nowadays, it helps to promote your website all around the internet…:):slight_smile: