Ramble On Ron

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Do You “Like” Facebook’s Changes?

Posted on | April 22, 2010 | 1 Comment

Yesterday Facebook announced some major changes at it’s annual f8 developers conference. Mark Zuckerberg took the stage to talk about the “like” button roll out, not just on Facebook itself, but across the web. In Facebook, one major change is on fan pages. So now Fan Pages are just Pages, and your fans are connections who “like” your product or brand. Not a bad move – liking something is a lot less of a commitment than being an actual fan, so I think that this will increase the amount of users on each page. As far as the like button on the web, when you go to websites like CNN, Fandango and others, your friends that read or liked an article, band or movie will be displayed. So basically, Facebook’s plan is to make the web a more social space, rather than an information driven web. Facebook calls it the “Open Graph.” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg called the shift “the most transformative thing we’ve ever done for the web.” This move also has major implications for ad targeting.

From the CNN article that I “liked”:

The announcement puts Facebook in further competition with other web companies like Google and Twitter, who are also trying to organize and make use of users’ preferences.

Facebook, which has more than 400 million members, says the Open Graph will make it easier for people to share information about their likes and dislikes all over the internet.

The social network will pull information about the websites a person visits, the news stories he or she likes and the music or athletes the person favors — and share all of that information with a person’s Facebook friends. That data will show up on Facebook.com and on other sites.

At Facebook’s f8 developers conference, WSJ’s Jessica Vascellaro gives Stacey Delo a post-game analysis of the social-networking company’s announcements, including news on its “like” button and what that means for ad targeting.

Of course, their big plan is to take over the web, and change the way people connect with one another. So far they are succeeding. Most experts that I have spoken to think it’s a smart move. What do you think? How is this going to affect the way you build your online presence/brand?

Category: facebook, social media
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