Faceful of Fury

Nobody wants to jump the shark. It’s a surefire sign you’re on the downhill slope. The phrase “jump the shark” has embedded itself in North American culture, referring to the demarcation between “reasonably good Happy Days” and “incredibly lame Happy Days.” Many pundits of various disciplines jockey for position to be the first to declare definitively that “______” has jumped the shark.

The interest in amateur punditry has created a new dynamic, where a small critical mass of Shark Jumping Cries can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Once the cool kids turn on you, you may not recover. Which brings us face-to-face with Facebook again.

From Buyout to Sellout

I stumbled across a link (hat tip: Bill Green) to a news story about a rising tide of angst among the Facebook Nation. They saw the headlines about Microsoft’s Micro-purchase, which subsequently set a capitalized value of $15-billion. (To put that in perspective involving a completely fictional statistic, that probably works out for a dollar each time a user has been pestered to add an application to their Facebook profile.) $15-billion seems really high, until you think about all of the wonderful personal data each user has forever locked away within the Facebook vault. There’s got to be a way to monetize all of that, right?

Needless to say, Facebook Nation is awakening to the reality that they might just be willing participants in history’s largest marketing experiment. Many of them are starting to resent it very much. The sentiment is starting to build that Facebook is sporting a leather jacket and a tow rope, ready to…

(okay. No one is saying that yet. Except Kevin Dugan, but he was talking about something else way back in June and this is my chance to be the first to… ah, never mind.)

Perception Becomes Reality

These memes are powerful, though. And they can spring forth from a very small nugget of reality. Why do you think Google has been ever so careful for so many years to cultivate the mantra of “Don’t Be Evil?” Because the cool kids in Mountain View understand just how quickly attitudes adjust online. Because the culture has been one of giving-giving-giving, with only moderate taking (and making money on volume-volume-volume.) Because Google has understood the value of wearing the leather jacket without the water skis.

Facebook is at a crossroads. Will it put on the skis, or will it tiptoe away to play another day?

Getting the most out of Facebook

Earlier, I mentioned how Facebook users were unwitting participants in a marketing experiment. As it turns out, we can turn the tables by doing market research of our own. For instance, in that same article cited above, we find an interesting little statistic:

It is early days, but so far Facebook’s online community is not impressed at being sold out. Discussion groups have sprung up attacking the new ad strategy. One, “My photos are MINE! NOT Facebook’s! Change the Terms and Conditions”, has almost 35,000 members, while around 12,000 people have signed up to “Facebook: Do not sell my private pictures! Change your terms of use, NOW!”

Contrast that with the feeble 600 so-called “fans” that Coke has on its Facebook page. And Blockbuster, that US movie lending giant, has a whopping two “fans”.

Blockbuster has only two fans on Facebook? I’m certain that the department that lobbied for the creation of that group had more than two team members. It’s rather embarrassing on two fronts. It’s bad enough if Blockbuster actually created the group – and it’s even worse if they didn’t.

A Blockbuster Failure?

Blockbuster is going through some very rough times. The brick-and-mortar stores are not faring well at all with the NetFlix model – which is based on the notion that postage and convenience is cheaper than physical buildings and redundant local inventories. Blockbuster has tried marketing an approach that is “best of both worlds” as it tries to establish on online rental alternative to NetFlix. At first glance, you might think that a Facebook presence would be helpful for Blockbuster, but not as a “Friends of” group. The more workable idea might be a “Movies I’m Watching” application, with an ever-so-slight branding. Something that shows what all your friends are watching too. Something that makes suggestions based on what your friends’ friends have liked.

I don’t know if Blockbuster is web-savvy enough to pull it off — and if Facebook is on water skis, then it’s too late anyway. I know that Blockbuster isn’t listening to blog entries. I wrote a very glowing review of my last experience at a Blockbuster, where an employee was quite helpful. I wanted to know how I could brag to about this employee’s exemplary service. I marked up the entry with obvious tags to Blockbuster. If they were even looking at all, it would have popped up in neon. All I wanted to do was brag on this employee who went out of his way. That was ago. The clock is still ticking. Now is gone. Consider the shark jumped.