Danny Whatmough.com

Is Facebook losing focus?

I’m almost bored of Facebook announcements. There have been so many over the last few weeks it is easy to lose count.

And, if you believe the reports out today, at the company’s F8 Developer conference on Thursday, we are set to see a barrage of new features and tweaks that will move the goalposts yet again.

On the one hand, it is great to see a company like Facebook innovating. I’ve often thought Facebook was slower than some of its competitors to roll out new features. But, much like London buses, this is clearly not the case anymore!

Facebook seriously risks confusing its users. Constant changes to the user interface will be met with mixed reactions (humans just don’t like change, fact), but changes to the fabric of the social network (e.g. subscribe buttons) could be far more serious.

Some of the most effective online businesses out there are the ones that are so simple to use that everything just seems to ‘make sense’. Facebook doesn’t fall into this camp and by adding complexity to complexity, it stands to alienate even its most loyal user base.

Forced to innovate?

Some will claim that Facebook’s ramped up efforts in recent weeks have been a direct response to the beta launch of Google+ (and future-proofing ahead of the Google’s public launch of the service, expected shortly) and a response to continued growth and development over at Twitter.

The changes at Facebook have been so wide ranging that I don’t think they can all be put down to a competitor response, but some developments have possibly been rolled out sooner than initially intended to start the fight back.

Users, users, users

With nearly a billion users, there is clearly no need to start sounding the warning bells yet. Facebook’s key strength still lies in the fact that it has by far the most users and the most active users of any social network out there.

The danger is that by constantly fiddling with the platform, users become confused about what the platform is for and how they should use it.

Too big to fail? Possibly. Too complicated to be useful? We’ll see…

picture credit

Danny Whatmough

Facebook launches a subscribe button & changes the social game again

I do wonder if the guys at Facebook, Twitter and Google have slept at all in the last few months. Only hours ago, in a blog about Twitter’s new analytics product, I mentioned that we are living through an intriguing battle as the three pretenders to the throne compete for supremacy. And for those of us working in the social media PR space, it is truly fascinating.

So I guess it should come as no surprise to find that, today, Facebook has unveiled another landmark change that could alter the way we all use the social network.

Introducing the subscribe button

At a basic level, Facebook’s new ‘subscribe’ button let’s users follow the public updates of anyone on the network without actually being friends with them. As Facebook states in the blog post announcing the service, in the past, users “couldn’t hear directly from people [they're] interested in but don’t know personally—like journalists, artists and political figures.”

Sound familiar? Yes, that’s right, the subscribe button is essentially the equivalent of the follow button on Twitter; Facebook is moving to a more asynchronous model. And, as with Twitter, the number of people ‘subscribing’ to your feed will be displayed on your profile.

There is additional functionality too. When viewing a friend’s profile, the subscribe button will allow you to set certain preferences which will control the updates you get from that person in your news feed. Settings include ‘all updates’, ‘most updates’ and ‘important updates’.

You can enable the subscribe option here.

Public v. private

When Facebook announced the changes to posting updates last month (the addition of privacy settings and location features), it was clear that it was encouraging users to make more of their posts public. This latest move seems to confirm that.

So on the one hand, this could encourage more people to make more of their posts public, but it could also encourage users to think more carefully about their privacy on the network; an issue that Facebook has struggled with in the past.

What does this mean for brands?

Another important question is whether this will have any effect on the ‘Pages’ feature that Facebook has created for companies or businesses.

The simple answer is no, it won’t.

The subscribe feature won’t be available on Pages and is really designed for individuals such as celebrities, journalists or politicians – individuals that have driven a lot of the success Twitter has achieved in recent years.

Facebook has created a handy little table – see right – that lets you see which feature is most appropriate for what you need.

Overly complex?

However, handy tables aside, I can’t help but think we are being bombarded by new Facebook features at the moment. Only yesterday, Facebook rolled out smart lists (incidentally a really nice feature) and it seems that every time I log onto the service, something has changed.

Of course, the subscribe button is totally optional. Facebook will function in exactly the same way that it always has. And one of my concerns with subscribe and with some of the other features that Facebook has introduced recently is that they risk over complicating the network. One of the reasons I believe Twitter has been so successful is that it is so simple to use. Facebook could potentially do with bearing this in mind.

But if Facebook gets it right and if users start embracing these new features, then it could be a good strategic move for the network. Whatever happens, those of us involved in social media PR will be watching how these changes are used very closely. I wonder what tomorrow will bring…

Danny Whatmough

Why Google has dropped the ball with Google+ business accounts

There’s a been a bit of a palava in the last few days with Google deleting hoards of Google+ accounts that violate its “community policies”.

There are two main reasons for this according to the new social (formerly search) giant:

Google has clamped down on ‘fake people’ or names that it deems to be ‘fake’. The problem is that this is very hard to get right. Mistakes have been and always will be made.
Google has expelled (most) brands and/or publishers it has found from the service.

The latter is fine insomuch as Google says it wants brands to wait until proper ‘brand accounts’ are available, but with brands clamouring to use the service and ‘official’ business accounts still a way off (albeit with very promising features), it seems very shortsighted.

Only an issue in the tech community?

Many will argue that, for most people, this isn’t really an issue and that it is another example of the tech community getting upset about something relatively small.

But these guys are very influential. Google+ has generally had an extremely positive reaction (in contrast to Google’s other social experiments), but many of these people are now changing their minds as Google cracks down. As Jon Evans over on Techcrunch says:

“It’s too bad that the service has sacrificed a pile of goodwill over the last week by repeatedly publicly shooting themselves in the foot,”

Google’s getting some bad PR on this one.

A lack of foresight

Google’s Vic Gundotra has admitted that the branded account issue was poorly thought through and many agree with him. It seems to me incredible that a massive, savvy company like Google couldn’t have seen that brands would want to flock to the service and therefore be prepared for this.

I could forgive a startup for not having everything in place, but Google has put massive resources behind this project.

Underestimating the importance of businesses for social networks

Perhaps the reason is that it underestimated the importance of businesses for social networks. But again, this seems unlikely. Google knows very well with Adwords that businesses are central to any online business model. It is also something that Facebook has eventually come to understand too. It has seen the success Twitter has had in attracting brands and has taken steps to cash in on this by increasingly opening up the network to businesses over the last few years.

Of course, in the long run, I doubt Google+ will suffer too much from all this. But it just goes to show that even a company as big as Google will run into problems when launching new products. I can’t help but feeling that a more open and considered strategy for branded pages would’ve been a good idea.

picture credit

Danny Whatmough

Why Facebook’s Skype announcement was a #PR #Fail

Sometimes in PR, no matter what you do, something else just comes out of the blue and sweeps away your opportunity.

That’s what it might feel like for Facebook today. Yesterday the social giant launched a tie up with Skype where it will offer 1:1 video right on the network through its existing chat functionality.

It’s a good innovation and one that I’m sure will be used a lot.

But the problem for Facebook is that Google had, as part of its Google+ announcement, launched a feature called Hangouts, where groups of up to ten could have online video chats together. The Google tool was better, slicker and announced earlier.

Of course, in the grand scheme of things, Facebook shouldn’t be too worried as, at the moment, it’s 600m active users will care much more about this announcement than about Hangouts.

But, I still think Facebook’s embattled PR team failed to approach this announcement in the best way.

An ‘awesome’ mistake

As soon as Google+ launched last week the comparisons with Facebook have been fast and furious. And rightly so. The fact that Facebook’s first post-Google+ announcement saw the network fail in a very obvious way to match Google+ is unfortunate.

Not least because of the way Facebook touted the press conference yesterday. Speaking in Seattle last week, Zuckerberg called it ‘awesome’ which clearly raised expectations to meteoric levels. The announcement certainly wasn’t awesome which has left the media reaction today less than positive.

Maybe I’m being too harsh on Facebook. Clearly, as stated above, this is good news for their users. And the link up with Skype (read: Microsoft) is certainly interesting.

My beef is in the way this was handled. Simple PR rules were broken: don’t overhype, manage your timing and make sure you match up to your competitors.

There’s nothing Facebook can do to influence how and when Google does things, but a good PR department would have the strength and courage of its convictions to speak out when an announcement looks doomed to #fail.

Danny Whatmough

Google+ musings; great product, three years too late?

I’ve been having a play with Google+, the new social network that launched this week.

And, to be honest, there is a lot to like! It’s a really well put together app and, while many of the features and functionality are very similar to those found on Facebook (and Twitter to a lesser extent), they are still executed very well and, in many cases, in a better way than on already existing platforms.

My main issue with Google+ in terms of whether it can succeed, is whether the USP is strong enough. Are there enough plus points to encourage people to move from Facebook and/or Twitter to use Google+ as their main social network? I’m not sure there is.

The only other possibility is that people will use Google+ alongside existing networks but, for me, there seems to be too much overlap to make this likely.

Here are the pros and cons of Google+ as I see it at this (albeit very early) stage:

Strong UI

Google has revamped its entire look and feel this week to coincide with the Google+ launch. This in itself demonstrates the importance the web giant is placing on this new service. It’s very clean, modern and slick with a lot of HTML5 tricks to simplify the user interface.

It’s also very intuitive. Part of this might be down to the fact it takes much of its functioanlity from existing networks that we are already familiar with, but even so, it is executed very impressively.

The (integrated) power of Google

While Facebook clearly has the user numbers already and Google+ doesn’t, it would be wrong to underestimate the potential power Google has. It is still by far the most dominant force on the web today with the majority of people still starting any browsing session.

If Google+ is pimped out far and wide across the Google network (which I have no doubt it will) then awareness levels could rise pretty quickly.

If Facebook was built today, it would look like this

The concept of ‘circles’ is very, very strong. To my mind, this is social 2.0 in action. The online social framework we have at the moment in networks like Twitter and Facebook is unnatural. Lumping all our friends, contacts etc. doesn’t sit well with how we interact offline.

In ‘real life’, we all have different social circles that we mix in and we behave in different ways with each. We share different information, gossip, thoughts etc. Google+ brings this natural sophistication online in a very clever way.

The key question is whether this USP is enough…

The Facebook (and Twitter) problem

And the reason this might not be enough is that Facebook and Twitter are so much further down the line, it’s going to be difficult for Google to catch up.

Facebook has already hinted at backlash moves to come next week and, with Google+ so heavily based on the Facebook model, it surely won’t be too difficult for Zuckerberg to match anything Google+ throws into the mix.

Venture Beat hints that, because of this, Google’s real target with all this is Twitter, but I’m yet to be convinced.

If only Google had launched this three years ago. What might have been…

Danny Whatmough

Clever AP knows Facebook can become the web’s newspaper

A report today in TechCrunch reveals that the Associated Press is using their Twitter account to push followers to their Facebook page. Rather than linking directly to news pages on their website, they are linking to pages on their Facebook profile which also features the news.

Techcrunch critises this move: “maybe they think that by hosting the content on Facebook, they’re being impartial with the tweets. But again, why not just use their own site?”

But, I think Techcrunch misses the point here. This isn’t about impartiality. It’s about building communities and it’s a smart move. I’ve written recently about the war that is brewing between Facebook and Google as both networks seek to become the social media (and email/messaging) dashboard.

Facebook is moving from the ‘walled garden’ network to the more open, ‘first port of call’ that, in many ways, Google has been to date. And with its user base soaring, it is perfectly poised to capitalise.

Facebook is also envious of the success that Twitter has had by embracing businesses and news outlets and has taken big steps recently to mirror this. It is a move that seems to be working, with recent research showing that Facebook is becoming a major driver to news networks. Outlets like the NYT has realised this and AP seems to be catching up on the action now too.

AP should be able to make the most of this, open digital world that media organisations now find themselves in. They are all about content. Monetising this content is a challenge. But embracing and building communities and new distribution networks is vital. By distributing their content directly to an engaged user base on Facebook (and Twitter), AP has much more control of how it uses this audience.

The traditional ‘website as a destination’ is beginning to decline. Fast forward to the ‘site-less’ web where rather than engaging with audiences on a corporate site, media outlets (and indeed brands) need to go to where the audience is. This is a big challenge for Murdoch et al but is already happening and is happening big-style.

As Steve Rubel says: “The AP is now changing the game for news by not only going where attention spirals are taking us but by also using their content to curate a conversation there and – above all build relationships.”

Monetisation is certainly an issue, but if AP can build up a significant user base on Facebook, the money will come.

As the power of Google News dimishes, can Facebook take over as the web’s news curator? AP seems to think it can…

hat tip to Ben, picture credit

Danny Whatmough

Buzz asks more questions than it solves

There’s been a mad rush in the last 24 hours to blog and tweet about the latest social media craze – Google Buzz. It’s rarely possible to objectively comment on something this new until you’ve tried it and lived with a for a bit, but such is the pace of social media…!

I always try and take a step back and avoid the urge to blog immediately but, as the day has gone on and as I have read more and more about it, there are a few initial thoughts that spring to mind that I thought I’d jot down.

A few caveats. Firstly, I haven’t really tried Google Buzz in anger yet. I use Google Apps for my personal email and it hasn’t been switch on there yet. Secondly, I reserve the right to change all of these views and opinions in the future!

Aggregation, location/mobile, social search – these are the three elements of social media that will be big this year. And to a certain extent, Google has made a start to confront each one. Google Buzz is yet another step in this direction, but they aren’t the only ones. Facebook in particular is also making big strides
This is not a Buzz v. Twitter debate – I see Twitter much more as a data store rather than a destination. This is enforced by Twitter’s willingness to encourage API usage etc. Twitter.com as a destination is likely to become even less important, it’s the tweets that matter. Therefore Twitter and Google could happily co-exist
It’s Facebook v. Google for social dominance - Facebook and Google have their sights on the big prize: they both want to become social media dashboards or the destination for all our online social (and even non social) activities. Facebook took a big step with the acquisition of Friendfeed and Google has moved into this domain today. Facebook’s announcement this week about it’s new email platform also adds fuel to the fire. It’ll also be interesting to see how software like Tweetdeck and Seesmic responds to this move
But what if I don’t use Gmail? – this could be a big issue for Buzz. I can understand why they wanted to integrate Buzz into the Gmail interface rather than create yet another destination, but what about those of us that don’t use Gmail regularly? It makes more sense for Facebook to bring an email client to its 400m users than for Google to bring Buzz to its 140m users
It’s more proof of the power of social – most of us now appreciate social media is here to stay, but this brings further confirmation from the biggest online player. Brin was on stage at the Buzz announcement which I think is a telling sign that Google has big plans for this in the future
What does this mean for Google Wave? - we all got very excited about Wave when it launched last year, but this has fizzled out to some extent. I just wonder if Google sees Buzz as some sort of link between Gmail and Wave. I still think Wave is potentially very interesting, but it is a big jump for most. Buzz is more palatable and could just possibly bring a middle solution

I started the day quite enthusiastic about Buzz but, having used it a few times I’ve become less convinced. I can see that it would be great for those that spend a lot of time in Gmail and use their Google address book etc., but that’s not me. Buzz is definitely one to watch, it has to be. But, I hope for Google’s sake, there is more to come…

Danny Whatmough

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Danny Whatmough

Why Facebook’s Skype announcement was a #PR #Fail

An ‘awesome’ mistake

Clever AP knows Facebook can become the web’s newspaper

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