@Strategyist

★ The Facebook Alienation: Pleasing the Wrong Stakeholders

The Facebook Privacy debate continues to rage around the blogosphere. And while I think we’re all going to get tired of this endless debate soon and move on, I’m now also convinced that this will not be without consequences for Facebook. But let’s start with a few important posts from the last few days:

• Robert Scoble published a piece where he basically pushes Facebook to open up more, because he sees the value of what a socially-enabled web can bring.
• Ryan Singel on Wired Epicenter, on the other hand, wrote that Facebook has gone rogue and that we need to develop some Open Alternatives fast.
• And in the meantime, Louis Gray has made up his mind and is moving his social networking hub to Google Buzz (I haven’t fully made up mine yet, partly because this way I can still hope to raise awareness about this among my friends). Update: As Louis indicates in the comments he is not abandoning Facebook, simply shifting usage to the most useful tools available, which is increasingly Buzz.
• Finally, CNET’s Caroline McCarthy compares Facebook’s changes with an earthquake, saying that even if there are risks that another earthquake happens, people won’t leave Facebook, just like they don’t leave California.

I fully agree with Scoble on the value that an interest & identity platform can give, and I think Facebook will remain a major player there in the near term. However, in the long run, I still think Facebook is playing a dangerous game, as pointed out in my previous posts and shown by the increasing debate in the blogosphere about leaving Facebook.

As I see it, this debate is revealing of two concerns for Facebook’s users, whether they stay (like Scoble), leave (like Louis), wait for an alternative (like Ryan) or don’t care (as Caroline describes):

• Facebook has been alienating the nature of its service, and it makes us uneasy. It used to be a closed place for sharing stuff with your friends. Now, it is trying to be a public distribution channel like Twitter (which I think will fail). This is not what users expect. Many will accept it, of course, without really caring or knowing what it means until we see some issues arise. Who is Facebook, really?
• Facebook has chosen to please only some of its stakeholders. This is two-fold: they are pleasing their users at the expense of influencers (more on this in a sec), and they are pleasing their masters (investors, advertisers) at the expense of their users. [1] Are we really going to benefit from this new world Facebook is creating?

These aren’t minor concerns. To explain why I think they will affect Facebook in the long run, let’s look at the Facebook userbase in 3 broad segments.

1. Early adopters and geeks: probably less than a few percent of the total [2] They are capable of moving, and willing to, because they value openness in the true sense and decentralized, loosely coupled systems.
2. Mainstream users who follow the privacy debate. Based on discussions with various acquaintances over the past few weeks, I would guess that’s at most 10 or 20% of the total userbase. Those also would like to be in control of their data, but are generally incapable of moving it, or (understandably) too lazy to go through the process of doing so. They’ll simply share less on Facebook, and wait for a turnkey alternative to be credible.
3. The rest of mainstream users. By deduction that’s ~80% of the total. [3] They don’t even want to move their data. They’ll keep sharing as they do now. They’ll notice the benefits of instant personalization. They’ll be the bread and butter of Facebook for the next decade.

Based on the numerous blog posts from these past weeks, I think Facebook has really infuriated the first group. Many feel that it has gone too far. While Scoble is right that it’s about the 5th time that Facebook has angered its users, I think he is wrong when he concludes that Facebook will continue to grow as before. This time it’s different.

The previous debates were about redesigns (except for Beacon where Facebook backtracked). This one is about protecting the Open Web as a loosely coupled system, and our right to control our data (both in terms of privacy and data portability).

So what if the early adopters leave Facebook? It will still own 99% of its user base, and be able to monetize it. It will have a massive IPO to justify its $15B valuation, and make money for its investors. But it might also start going the way Microsoft did when it lost the faith of the early adopters and geeks. Alternatives will appear (geeks will build them), and Facebook will lose foot in the future of social networks (as enterprise communication tools), just like Microsoft lost foot in the future of computing (cloud and mobile).

Then these Open Alternatives (think of them as the Firefox of Social Networking) will become good enough for mainstream users to use. The first to switch will be the privacy conscious, because that will be the most immediate benefit. And then the rest will slowly start to follow, because the benefits will be clear — increased security thanks to community maintained open source code, non-commercial interests, full data ownership and granular sharing…

Conclusion: it is not the first time, nor the last, that closed systems take over. But once again, it will also be challenged by open alternatives that defend the user’s interests. It will be up to us to ensure that these alternatives see the light as fast as possible, and are simple and attractive enough to see mainstream adoption.

What do you think will happen to Facebook in the medium or long term due to these changes? Will it manage to embed itself in the fabric of the web, becoming a single point of failure? Will the early adopters who are leaving be followed by the rest of the userbase? How could Facebook avoid this?

Notes:

1. I don’t think this ever happened to Google, which always managed to keep the early adopters using its main services (Search, Gmail and Google Reader). Interesting… [↩]
2. The Techcrunch RSS readership is ~4.4million users, that’s 1% of Facebook’s 400-500 million user count. [↩]
3. This includes both people who don’t care and people who aren’t aware of the changes, because they closed the pop-up or clicked through on the screens. Not too sure of the split though. Anyone has data on that? [↩]

11. May 2010 by Jean Friesewinkel
Categories: Privacy, Social | Tags: facebook | 14 comments

12 Tweets 1 Other Comment

Additional comments powered by BackType