Facebook on TV: Not Good
For an online entrepreneur, appearing on TV isn’t always a good thing. In fact, it can signal desperation.
On Sunday night, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg will appear on “60 Minutes†to tell the world that Facebook is in trouble. He doesn’t say that in so many words, of course, but his participation on the weekly news show, given the unlikelihood that many in Facebook’s existing demographic of 12-to-24-year-olds watch “60 Minutes†on a regular basis, signals that the social networking site is trying to connect with a larger audience.
Sure, Facebook has 60 million members and is valued at $15 billion, but it is still the No. 2 social network. To defend its lofty valuation, Facebook needs to grow its user base and figure out how to make money off of it, and those two things are looking like they may be mutually exclusive. Consider the reaction of the social networking site’s users to its Beacon advertising program.
Zuckerface must resort to offline promotion to acquire online customers. I’m starting to think Microsoft and Facebook are made for each other. After all, they’ve both pissed off Scoble.
Facebook Ads Will Spam Your Friends
Hugh MacLeod pretty much sums up how I feel about Facebook’s new “social ad platform“. I have no intention of giving out free product endorsements unless I actually feel like it. Facebook merely railroading my personal choice is not worth fifteen billion dollars. If I really, really want to bet my reputation on a product by telling you to buy it, I’ll take the time to blog it.
If Mark Zuckerberg thinks people will somehow feel “cooler” by spamming their friends, he’s deluded. When product recommendation engines work using aggregate data, they’re helpful. When product recommendations come as unauthorized personal endorsements, they’re exploitative.
