This week in social media…
Timeline Redesign
After seeing its stocks plummet on its IPO launch, Facebook is considering a re-design of Timeline. Now in beta testing, the new look will showcase basic user info like age, city, and occupation in the cover photo, and in large, white text. The redesign will also change ‘Likes’ into ‘Favorites’; add a summary tab of the major events in a user’s life; and condense the Friends, Photos, Map and other apps into a smaller space below the cover photo. Facebook issued a mild response to the news, saying “We can confirm this is a small test, but don’t have anything further to share at this time.” PC World has a first look at how the new Timeline might appear, and I personally have to say it hasn’t changed enough. It looks dated and sort of reminds me of a bad PowerPoint presentation. What do you think?
Pictures and Mobile
AdAge reports today that at the same time Facebook shelled out $1 billion dollars to acquire Instagram, it was working on its own photo app, Facebook Camera. And days prior to its IPO, the site also acquired LightBox, a mobile photo-sharing app for Android. Looking to photo and mobile technologies is solid thinking. Facebook became notable in part for its photo uploading and tagging capabilities, and with the IPO failure, experts speculated investors should move their money to mobile. Facebook’s major struggle is profit, as a majority of users have switched to the largely ad-free Facebook mobile app in place of web browsing. One idea for growth is that Facebook team up with certain photo-centric tech startups to make photo sharing more interactive, functional, and applicable to both consumers and businesses. Facebook will need extreme crowdsourcing in order to roll out a deeper photo-sharing program, meaning it will need its users to actively tag products, outfits, other people, literally anything, in order to achieve functionality at the Facebook-level. AdAge foresees this being a problem, but I agree with Luminate CEO, Chas Edwards, that people feel rewarded for tagging because it offers a sort of “social currency”. (If you need evidence, look at the Library industry, which has successfully used crowd sourcing to share entire digital collections). The big question is will people want to tag products? If Pinterest is any indication, I think, yes.
Privacy
On Tuesday, Facebook agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by angry users who claim their privacy was violated when they were featured in Facebook’s ‘Sponsored Stories’ without their permission. The users allege that checking in to a location on Facebook, or using the sites “Like” button could force users to take part in Sponsored Stories advertising. Facebook says the intent of Sponsored Stories is to “broaden your reach by allowing your fans to help their friends discover your brand.” But earlier this month, Facebook’s head of privacy policy, Erin Egan, hinted in a Web chat that Facebook would begin serving targeted ads to users on third-party websites- meaning the “Your Friend Sam likes Liqui-Site Designs” could be seen not just on Facebook, but across the web. Facebook is clearly mining and analyzing data beyond what users typically believe they’ve consented to in its Privacy Terms. Why is Facebook not addressing changes to its Policy alongside other announcements of redesign, mobile, and photo plans? Privacy was one of the biggest concerns to Facebook’s investors pre-IPO and they are likely to be more critical of possible Facebook lawsuits during the next phase of Facebook.
Lastly, Mark Zuckerberg got married this week! So maybe some of that newlywed bliss will lead to creativity and innovation (and user privacy) at Facebook. Here’s a picture of his wife, Priscilla Chan, and their dog Beast—who has his own Facebook page!
