Thoughts on the Facebook Interface

I was discussing the uses of social media for businesses recently with a VC contact of mine in NYC. A by-product from the disconnect that exists between social and business media, I feel there is a missing piece of the puzzle here that Facebook could crack and establish a more direct stream of revenue.
Facebook is a person-centric platform in which a user's profile or "Face" is the brand which is the whole point of social networking.
This differs from the MySpace strategy which simply allows homepages to be built around a business presence and allows almost complete customization. Facebook limits the changes but benefits from the user-defined & private network experience while still allowing a person to become a fan. What Facebook does not allow is the creation of actual facebook profile or homepages for a business (eg a company does not have a "face"). To this end, Facebook allows Pages or News Feeds or Events to be created as secondary tiers for a person's profile but this, by design, prevents people from becoming "friends", instead they are "fans".
This is an intended by arbitrary aspect of Facebook in that it seeks to maintain the focus on people connecting and it prevents dodgy businesses from harassing users by blasting friend requests & posting updates purely for commercial reasons.

But it seems to me that Facebook is missing out on a potentially huge market for small businesses who can capitalize off of microcontent and organic networking. For example, Creating an option for a "Presence" account for a subscription fee to all businesses that want to appear that can also be monitored (therefore, not exploited). This would allow Facebook to expand to users' business entities so that people can receive fully status updates on newest products or services, deals, and complementary offers. Businesses that need a social, personalized presence or those that can benefit from organic communications platform would value this.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

To SWOT or Not?! Answer = Technical SWOT

Image
No one who has ever worked in a corporate environment, much less been to business school, has ever avoided dealing with the infamous SWOT Analysis. SWOTs are meant to summarize the strategic positioning of a company and explain where they are and what steps they should take to be more effectual. In actuality, they are a very effective high-level tool for examining any company. I incorporated the SWOT technique into my own surveys of companies and created the T-SWOT or Technical SWOT analysis. The idea here is to easily and effectively explain to my VC clients what are the Technology-based positioning a company has. Each SWOT axis can be converted to technology standards and examines the tech functions of a company in a granular fashion. SWOT in an IT Context: Strengths - technical strengths in platform, infrastructure and management Weaknesses - who a firms software design and platform may weaken them and what they should do Opportunities - in the technology field
Read more

SaaS: The Real Scoop on Multiple vs Single Tenancy

Image
Let's face the obvious. VCs plain love SaaS! What's not to like? SaaS (Software as a Service) architecture has gained tremendous momentum in the software world as it is the evolution of the ASP model allowing a software delivery without the need for any local data or software installation. Any browser with a robust Internet connection is able to access the software and the clients are billed via a subscription model, hence the service part. No ownership, no installation, no maintenance. I recently vetted a SaaS company for a VC client of mine and the SaaS model & revenue model made an extremely compelling business case. For VCs looking to invest in companies with a scalable business model this is an ideal revenue structure as it generally involves a fixed cost of initial development and infrastructure then they can scale up for countless clients who also subscribe to their software. This is great but there is more to it as the architecture for SaaS comes in two bas
Read more
Image
Technology Risk Management Primer for Portfolio Companies ( Part 1) Private equity and venture capital firms often face the threat of risk within  their portfolio companies, but are not always certain of their portfolio firm’s  competency in this area. Risk Management within Information Technology is  especially critical as it affects all operations as well as the eventual valuation  of the portfolio investment. CSC, Inc. specializes in helping investment firms  make the best technology decisions for their portfolio company’s technology  needs. This article serves as a primer for PE & VC firms who must ensure that their  investments are secure and may need to proactively engage the IT  management of their portfolio company. This primer can act as a template  for those IT managers that are tasked with developing an IT risk  management plan and who need guidelines for the process. It will also  provide examples of how to implement each step and a validation structure  for the i
Read more