However, the question must be asked: what is the real price
of this freedom of communication? It cannot be denied that one of the most
attractive things about Zuckerburg’s site is the lack of fee to be paid.
However, this supposed benefit comes at the price of advertisements on every
page we access through our browsers. Personally, I don’t even notice the
adverts any more, they seem to merge into the background and overall setup of
Facebook, but it seems that in the near future there is the potential for a
huge increase in this encroachment on space of our computer screens.
In order to make a profit, Facebook faces the challenge of
convincing investing companies and agencies that “a message from a friend” is
the best form of advertising for their product or service. Facebook is
undoubtedly an incredibly effective platform for the promotion of products-
with an inexhaustible supply of eyes around the world constantly on the site.
Because of this, it is expected to be an advertising machine. While companies
such as Google take advertising to a new level- offering a technological
solution to enable lots of people to place ads easily (by bidding for key words
or the space next to these words- immediately placing said ad next to the key word
all over the web), Facebook has employed what seems to be a rather standard
mode of advertising. This has recently led the company to be on a knife edge of
failure or success.
The problem with Facebook’s mode of advertising is that they
constantly devalue investor’s products, trying to fit as many on a page as
possible. This is a response to the ever increasing traffic that the website
experiences. The lowering prices of ads against the increasing traffic may mask
the problem of lack of profit in the short term, but actually ends up decreasing
the value of the adverts, and therefore Facebook itself.
When we take into account mobile media, the problem becomes
a lot clearer. Because of the small size of smartphone and tablet pages, only a
small amount of adverts can be placed on any one page, which means that unless
Facebook can come up with a solution, there is the very real potential the
demise of this company may come about due to the increased use of this mode of
media.
Three main things to think about:
ReplyDelete1) When you don't pay for a service, you are the product. Facebook has amassed a wealth of information on you: what you like and don't like, who your friends are, and so on. This is the real value, as it allows targeted advertising. No need to bombard everybody with the same adverts, but only those who are likely to respond to it. Much better value for money for advertisers. And you are giving away this valuable data for free.
2) Data ownership. If you want to quit Facebook, can you get all your post and photos that are stored there? Can FB do things with your data that you have allowed them to do in the small print of the terms that nobody ever reads? Can you ever delete that embarrassing picture of yourself you posted without thinking when drunk/angry/upset?
3) Purpose. Are there other ways to do the same things FB has to offer? Using a variety of other services, such as blogs, twitter, or LInkedIn (which of course has similar issues as FB with regards to the first point!). What happens if FB closes down your account because you do something they don't like? Are there any alternatives, or will you be 'exiled' from society?
It's worth keeping these issues in mind when discussing any service provided on the web, especially when it's a free one: someone has to pay for it in the end, and it might be you!
Hopefully, in a year and a half's time we'll be able to say Facebook cost us our childhoods, but not our degrees!
ReplyDeleteIt's got to be said however that facebook has developed from it's humble social uses to a genuine tool both of academia (how many of our module groups, project teams and societies are now FB based?) and of business. I rely on this website to orchestrate a huge proportion of my social calendar and, thankfully, remind me of all those important anniversaries which are not quite important enough for me to actually remember...
Although Facebook's method of advertising may be part of its problem regarding the company's decreasing financial value, there's a variety of other things contributing towards it. For example, targeted advertising or no, if you have an ad blocker installed and turned on in your browser, the company won't receive the ad revenue you would otherwise be contributing towards. Plenty of other 'free' services on the internet suffer because of ad blockers, especially webcomics and internet celebrities; something convenient for us comes at the cost of someone else's livelihood. I'm not certain that changing its advertising policy and placing more ads on each page would help Facebook very much, because people will continue to find ways around them. Of course, as Oliver said, Facebook's true wealth is not in its finances, but in the sheer amount of personal data it has access to. A more likely method of increasing Facebook's value again would be finding some way of using all this information to its advantage, though how I don't know due to all the legal issues surrounding data protection.
ReplyDeleteIn regard to being barred from using social networking sites: while it may be inconvenient for an indefinite length of time, there are other methods of communicating with people, both online and offline. While Facebook and its relatives may be the biggest, most popular methods of social networking, this is likely to eventually run its course. New sites and services will appear for us to use as technology advances and the internet changes - though I imagine issues with data ownership and advertising will be rife amongst these, too.