With the Facebook F8 developer conference coming up this Wednesday, Facebook PR is hard at work trying not to be outdone by Twitter in terms of preshow buzz. Still, the biggest news coming out of the tech giant so far has been, well, likeable … but not entirely earthshattering.
As reported in the New York Times, Facebook has announced that it intends to implement a “like” button on every web page on the Internet. Pete Cashmore of Mashable said “its all part of Facebook’s plan to follow you around the entire web, and perhaps avoid the fate of MySpace.”
The idea, according to Cashmore, is to avoid becoming just another “destination” that can be “left” as soon as another easier, more reliable site comes along to replace yours — as happened with Friendster and MySpace.
“The more businesses rely on Facebook,” he mused, “the less likely it is to fail.”
That leaves a whole lot of individual users out of the equation, but let’s set that argument aside for a moment.
Let’s also set aside that Twitter, Meebo and others are also expected on Monday to announce ways to draw users from anywhere (Twitter calls its idea “@anywhere”) back to their respective sites.
To my mind, there’s another development happening here, one with significant financial implications.
When you view this in terms of analytics, there is a strong advertising component as well. In this scenario, the “like” button will be used as a revenue generator since it immediately measures value (“resonance,” in Twitter’s parlance) of online advertising.
The more “likes” something gets, the more advertising in connection with it will cost. This can be increased instantaneously.
The lack of a “dislike” button is… equally obvious, Facebook doesn’t want to do anything that could be construed as actionable in terms of sereptitiously decreasing the value of a product or ad.
How does this help facebook? By making it the database for real-time analytics trying to determine the advertising value of any or every website out there. With this central position, Facebook becomes the NASDAQ of website market value.
Do you agree? What are your thoughts? And, do you think Facebook has any other news up its sleeve before F8?
