A @rww post today on recently launched Facebook Places making location a commodity is yet another example of that social network’s unrelenting drive to dominate, nay own the social web.
Now there’s nothing wrong with that—if you’re inebriated with hubris and your beer belly betrays a sordid tale of wanton avarice.
But this brief post is not meant to stigmatize FB (ya, @so_char, it’s not all about bellyaching) since FB itself has done a splendid job of doing that through its own awkward mishaps.
Rather, Facebook’s oversized popularity coupled with a series of knee-jerk like changes to its features make me think that social greed has come to typify its mantra.
ReadWriteWeb notes:
« While it’s true that there is value to the end user in the commoditization of location data, it’s a commodity that many location-based companies likely did not want. Until now, they’ve been able to compete not only on features, but also on the richness, accuracy and completeness of their own geo-location databases. That selling point is now going to disappear, thanks to Facebook. Hopefully, the location-based startups have a few other ideas for retaining their users in this post-Places era. »
Whether or not Facebook’s recent foray into geolocation will indeed stymie the growth of already established players like Gowalla and Foursquare remains to be seen.
That Facebook has set out to aggressively conquer almost every corner of the social space to date is indeed a testament both to its purchasing and staying power. Bravo.
Oddly, despite its incredibly powerful brand and mass appeal, Facebook strikes me to be more concerned about hoarding data than actually sharing it. The iconic face of social media it most certainly is not.
image sourced from lostinyourinbox.com
Autom,
Well said! The expression on the little girls face says hoarding like no-one else’s business!
Joseph
@RepuTrack
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Joseph - it’s a great photo..the post is not meant to lambaste FB—well ok, may be just a little bit—as you know i ‘poke’ at it all the time . .it’s a phenomenal brand but i wish they’d adopt a less selfish (less awkwardly arrogant) approach and concretely demonstrate that their developments are indeed driven with the their users’ best interests in mind
Oh Autom lol,
I’m just getting to see this now! I must admit I cringe a little when I see you write about my beloved Facebook
….but definitely undeniably valid points though.
I agree with Joseph, fantastic picture!!
hey, nice blog…really like it and added to bookmarks. keep up with good work
[…] Foursquare, BrightKite, Whrrl, Scvngr and now even Facebook’s Places (see my less than stellar impression of this) are among the tech companies driving this wildly popular […]
[…] Foursquare, BrightKite, Whrrl, Scvngr and now even Facebook’s Places (see my less than stellar impression of this) are among the tech companies driving this wildly popular […]
Just downloaded it on my iPhone and really like it! I believe SCVNGR is SO much better than Foursquare mainly because of the game dynamics that they’ve that are part of it. Now they just need to build up their user base because not a single person I know is using it.
I’m guessing that Foursquare will simply add on some of the features that SCVNGR has so that they can compete.
awesome writing skills.. Did you write this yourself? Either way I’m impressed, and I will be back to read more in the future
Now there
Nicely, I’m so excited that I’ve found this your post since I’ve been looking for some info about it nearly three hours.
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