I usually talk about national politics in this forum. I think it's good though, to choose a new topic every now and again to keep it fresh. Besides, this is my personal forum in which to piss and moan about the stuff that bugs me. This is one of those times. What's on my mind? Facebook.
I used to love facebook. I found friends I hadn't seen since high school, I found ex-boyfriends and discovered I dodged some bullets, and I have learned that comparatively, I'm aging quite well. I even keep up with my kids on facebook. Ever since the company went public, however, facebook is changing, and not for the better. It's been a somewhat gradual change, but it's a sinister one, and it started right around the time facebook botched its IPO.
First, a confession. I love George Takei. Love, love, love him. Although I'm firmly in camp Star Wars, I'm a devoted Mr. Sulu fan. So I "liked" his fan page on facebook. He puts out timely, funny and thought provoking content regularly (usually several times a day). I enjoyed it in my stream and it was there quite often. Until it wasn't. I started hearing rumors about facebook limiting the number of fans any page could reach. At first I thought no--it's a free page and makes its money via advertising. Then I saw that if I wanted a status update to reach all my friends, I could pay $7 to promote the post.
So the rumors were true. Fan pages with a lot of likes get charged an exorbitant amount of money to promote postings if they want them to reach all of their page's fans. Without utilizing the promote feature, only around 15% of pages fans will receive any one post. Even though I have a "regular old" facebook and not a fan page, the same rule applies. Any status update I post will hit only about 15% of my friends list. As if that wasn't bad enough, it's getting worse.
I've noticed lately that advertisements are showing up on my stream. Not posts from pages I've liked, but from pages my friends have liked. For example; I keep getting ads from a page called Daily Deals that one of my friends has liked. The nice folks at Daily Deals has paid facebook for a promotion that includes the friends of everyone who has liked their page. I tried using the "hide" feature, but that doesn't work. The ads keep showing up. Same with Lysol. I promise you I have nothing against Lysol...but I haven't "liked" it either. But I get Lysol ads quite often.
Facebook has always been the greatest advertising gimmick on the planet. The reason it was so successful was that when one of your friends liked a page, you'd get a little notice that said, "Mary likes Acme cupcakes." So, the next time I wanted a cupcake, I'd remember that Mary liked Acme and I'd give 'em a try. Word of mouth from friends is a powerful marketing tool. Unfortunately, now, Acme can just pay to promote a cupcake ad, and because I'm Mary's friend, I'm subjected to Acme's pitch whether I like it or not.
This is kind of making me resent Mary for liking Acme in the first place. It's also making me HATE Acme for clogging up my stream with cupcake ads. That, coupled with the fact that when I post cute photos of Madilynn (my granddaughter), only 15% of my friends get to see them makes me downright loathe facebook. I predict that in a years time, facebook will be taken over almost completely by corporate entities sponsoring their ads. I think the time to give Google+ a serious try has come. Facebook clearly isn't about connecting people anymore--it's about connecting corporations with unwilling recipients of advertising. The social aspect is being drowned in a wave of sponsored advertisements in our feeds, and intentionally choking out meaningful content. Even if that content is just a photo of what your friend made for dinner.
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