Tag Archives: Mark Zuckerberg

Facebook’s Graph Search Says Boo-Yah to Google

Today, Facebook announced the beta version of its new product called Graph Search, which, for regular users, transitions their experience into one where they can perform searches based on their friends, but for marketers, will potentially create a whole new revenue stream which directly results in a party-girl arm raise and squeal of excitement. With the product, Facebook is effectively attempting to do what Google+ does in a limited scope, and Google’s search product is a platinum grade provider of: search.

Since its inception, Facebook has been a non-stalkery, but definitely done in the middle of the night from your dorm, way to drop friends a note and see what everyone with whom you’re connected is up to. The service they provide today is much different than the Facebook of yesteryear because they’ve added a bevy of products since that time to create a more efficient user experience. With relative success, they constantly update its systems to become a more relevant player in people’s everyday lives. This includes the implementation of the Wall, News Feed, Timeline, Brand Pages, Poke, Gifts, Games & Apps, Messages, Chat, advertising (with all of its incredible amounts of products), mobile interfaces… It feels like the list goes on and on. 

The big news with Graph Search, though, is that it’s the company’s attempt to take on a world in which they’ve only been limited-to-moderate players. Search is a whole new playing field for Zuck, and if the gold-level user experience witnessed in his company’s previous products are any indication, Graph Search will works its way into being the threshold for everything pertaining to internet searching. Those familiar with Google, (so, umm, everyone), know that Larry & Sergey’s product is the kingpin of the search world and that they’ve seemingly worked restlessly to make Google+ a more social-infused version of its premiere search product.

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https://www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch

If you check out Graph Search’s product page (seen here), you’ll see that Zuck and his crew are attempting to make Facebook the place where you search for everything you may ever want in your life. Perhaps you’re interested in seeing if any of your friends like a certain doctor, do a Graph Search. Need a recommendation on a new vacation spot? Do a graph search. These actions, then, turn Google into the secondary and perhaps tertiary path of search. You can get all of the basic information on services from their pages, but it’s not like you can book flights, reserve tables, buy a lamp, and so forth from a company’s page (yet). What’s crucial here is the level of the implicit preference provided when you’re searching for what your friends like. Through Facebook, searches metamorphose from a simple, “Who of my friends live in this city?” into inherent recommendations.

The opportunity this could provide marketers is currently speculative if anything, but I think it’s safe to say that Graph Search could become a next-life for SEO, as well as the home of Facebook’s current paid-search advertisement offerings. 

What Facebook’s Q3 Earnings Mean for You

On the questions of where advertisers are, as I said before, we are asserting that we are not TV, we are not search. We are social advertising.  – Sheryl Sandberg

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via Facebook (don’t sue meee)

The Zuckster released Facebook’s Q3 earnings for 2012 yesterday, mere months after its IPO launch on May 18th. At that time, the company’s valuation was approximated at $104 billion (Wikipedia), and now has a Q3 earning of $1.26 billion. That’s a whole lotta paper and according to their press release, this is a 32% increase from the $954 million in Q3 of 2011. I actually wrote last week about how the social space has changed, and how Facebook became a whole new landscape in just a year’s time. It’s not only rolled out a full integration of Timeline, making it a curator of stories and experiences, it’s also become an advertiser’s mecca by providing integrated options for reaching finessed targeted demographics with brand’s messages in a natural, conversational manner.

This is all cool stuff, but what does this mean for all the stakeholders? Here’s a quick look:

Investors: Congrats – you did it buddy. Your investment will pay off so tell the naysayers to suck it. The stock, while quiet at first, jumped after the announcement and is currently up 3.70 as of this writing. (Click here for a real time data analysis). You’ll also receive $0.12 per share on a non-GAAP basis (whatever that means…). Now’s the time to hang that certificate and put a big LIKE thumbs up on it.

Users: Part of their earnings announcement involved readdressing some of the products that will enhance your overall experience with the site. These include the addition of Gifts, as well as a deeper integration into Apple’s new iOS 6.0. In terms of advertising, though, they’ve developed tools such as Custom Audiences, Offers, Facebook Exchange, and mobile install ads. Buzzwords aside, this means that advertisements have been (and will continue to be) served towards you in a more conversational, approachable way instead of just thrown at you, so you might not have even noticed the difference if it wasn’t for the “Sponsored” notice.

Custom Audiences, as described in further detail here by TechCrunch, allows marketers & ad peeps alike to target you through privacy-protected phone numbers or email addresses that you’ve given to a brand through signing up for their service (i.e. a Groupon or what have you), as well as through your Facebook ID. This is all on top of the standard targeted elements such as age, gender, geo-targeting. This is all information you have given out, not that was bought so rest assured, no spamming here!

Offers lets brands serve you deal via Facebook, I’ve seen cool ones like 15% off of purchase from some of my favorite brands, as well as brands that my friends follow (friends of fans targeting).

Facebook Exchange allows, among other things, ads to be served to you based off of your online behaviors, known as Retargeting. Advertisers can bid on those ads in real time, allowing them to find you and serve you an ad on a whim. Looking for a camera? BOOM! Here’s a Nikon ad. (Some more info on Exchange can be found here.)

Mobile install ads is basically a developer’s dream. This allows for mobile ads to direct you straight through to the app store to download some awesome new treat. Look for more innovations in mobile in the months to come too!

Marketers/Ad peeps: :) Sip your cocktail, as these are all more exciting ways to help out your brands and to reach your consumers in noninvasive, approachable, and friendly ways.

Some cool stuff here. So not only will you get to send your friends gifts, and have better mobile experiences, but you’ll also have more relevant pieces of content and advertisements coming your way based off of your online habits and different sets of information you’ve given about yourself to sites. On top of this, Facebook will continue to rake in the dough, as will all of their investors. Cool beans?

Let me know if none of that makes sense to you, I’m happy to elaborate.

Is Facebook the New Virgin?

Don’t be mistaken, the Virgin Group overseeing over 40 different businesses in seemingly every continent on the globe, headed by billionnaire founder Sir Richard Branson, once started off as a magazine, Student, then morphed into a mail-order record distributor in the 1970s. Living entrepreneurially and taking chances is something that Branson has done nearly his entire life.

We are all familiar to a certain degree of Mark Zuckerberg‘s rise to the billionnaire club, and if you saw David Fincher’s The Social Network  you now have a fictionalized perception on just how Facebook came to be. Boy from Long Island attends Harvard, drops out when his website becomes the coolest thing on earth since James Dean; website dominates college campuses, then the United States, then the world.

The shift in Facebook since its beginnings somewhat mirrors the professional trajectory that Branson chose to take Virgin. Both companies started off as a way to keep students entertained in one way or another. The Virgin Group shifted from the music industry to what feels like every apparent industry imaginable on earth – wine, air, fitness, finance, vacations, trains. Facebook, since its inception less than a decade ago, has seen a number of changes in not only its appearance, but its services as well – instant messaging, marketplace, timeline, possibly a phone, and many more of which you can learn about on their blog.

The point of it all is a good entrepreneur evolves alongside their clientele. I’m particularly interested in seeing if/how Facebook will translate its brand from the web to actual products and if it effectively takes the Virgin route and plans on total global domination.

Perception and “The Social Network”

My immediate reaction from leaving The Social Network was disgust, “Sean Parker is a drug addicted a–hole.” Right after that statement left my mouth, I stopped for a second, abruptly putting a cease and desist order to prevent my brain waves from creating any other unfounded criticisms on the movie because after stepping back I realized that the movie is a fictional interpretation of factual events.

As far as deciding whether or not I like the movie – yeah I liked the movie. I enjoyed the story it told about a disillusioned, socially inept, vengeful co-ed and his journey on sticking it to the girl who broke up with him as well as the only true ally he had.

The main issue I had with the movie was the illusion it gave me as what was factual and what parts of the movie were writers embellishment. I’m not trying to say anything badly about Aaron Sorkin – he wrote an amazing screenplay and I enjoyed his cameo as a possible venture capitalist. All of the actors in the film played their roles impeccably – I’ve always been impressed by Jesse Eisenberg’s incredible acting this was no different… Andrew Garfield was equally as fantastic in his role as Eduardo Saverin, and he is f-i-n-e fine.

Certainly the film’s catchphrase holds true in all spectrums of business – there really is no possible way to get to the top of your game without stepping on others along the way. That being said – the film certainly turned me off from my avid Facebook using as it portrayed users as thoughtless, bored collegians who use the medium as a means of revisiting (or a means of filling in the blanks) crazy parties, pseudo-stalking acquaintances — oh wait, that part was true. It’s the fact that this was their intended purpose that leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Zuckerberg purposefully created a medium which effectively causes a passive way at becoming more acquainted with strangers and friends alike.

As a PR student I learned that perception is everything. So I wonder what Columbia Pictures and Zuckerberg’s team think about the people who are coming out of the film angered and completely bothered by the story. My immediate observations of the movie more or less dealt with what I thought about the people involved in the story, and then almost instantaneously realizing that my anger should have been targeted towards the characters.

While we’ll never know the full truths involved with the beginnings of Facebook, I think it’s important to be cognizant of a few things – the first: the people in the film are basically caricatures of real people; second: the movie depicts that Facebook was designed out of malice; third: it’s up to the viewer to determine how they feel about the real people involved in the story – I can speak for myself when I say that I’ll be decreasing my Facebook presence.

What did you think after the movie? According to Variety‘s website, the movie has made $24.5 million to date. If you haven’t seen it, what are you waiting for. If you have, I’d love to hear what you thought about it.