University Wire
11-16-2007
(The Daily Iowan) (U-WIRE) IOWA CITY, Iowa -- When I was 12 years old, I was already in the throes of a violent relationship with social networking. Coming home from school after getting beat down in yet another botched game of touch football, I would escape into the plush, forested realm of Azeroth to do battle with Orcs in a lively LAN party of "Warcraft." Chips and salsa stood nearby on the desk flanked by a glass of chocolate milk next to a Cheeto-stained mouse. Patiently I would wait for AOL to dial in, joining my fellow minions; with knights and Elvish archers I saved the world from evil rule from 3:30 to 6:30.
It's been many years since I abandoned that real-time strategy game for other virtual vices. Among those that have been allowed to stand in the footprint of the epic game are the "real-life" social networks Facebook and MySpace. These two in particular have provoked me to cast an inward glance on myself and the virtual worlds I have traveled.
I left the shores of fixed social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace because I felt they were inadequate, incapable of holding intact a truly unique personal representation in cyberspace. They weren't giving users enough credit and creative license as Web 2.0 promised to do. Wait, what's Web 2.0? In a microscopic nutshell, Web 2.0 is a new evolution of the Internet in which users control how they experience Web content using browser-integrated applications such as Gmail and Flickr to create a richer user interface. It is also the idea that users are viewed as competent software developers with "collective wisdom."
Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg is trying to take advantage of this new platform in an attempt to increase ad revenue. For instance, according to a New York Times article, "a Facebook user who rents a movie on Blockbuster.com will be asked if he would like to have his movie choice broadcast out to all his friends on Facebook. And those friends would have no choice but to receive that movie message, along with an ad from Blockbuster." So basically, you jump in this box called Facebook to be closer to all your friends and then through clicks and turns you start linking yourself to products. What happened to the Facebook of my freshman year? It used to be all about increasing the connections between people. Now, those connections are becoming convoluted with advertisements enticing you to do the work for the corporations by acting as what Facebook calls a "trusted referral." Integrated third-party applications such as iLike and Zombies are the beauty of the customizable Web 2.0 dream, but they being taken advantage of by dorky money freaks like Zuckerberg.
The situation gets even weirder. In order provide users the option of linking to these products, Facebook has allowed the companies to have their own personal pages. The pages are just like any other pages, with music tastes and photos, but the products have "fans" instead of friends. Blockbuster CEO Jim Keyes expressed the change well when he said in a Facebook press release: "This is beyond creating advertising impressions. This is about Blockbuster participating in the community of the consumer so that, in return, consumers feel motivated to share the benefits of our brand with their friends."
Fortunately, people don't seem to be tricked. I mean, honestly, who wants to be friends with Crest Whitestrips, let alone admit to using the chemical bands? A quick scan of these product pages revealed that Verizon had the most fans, with a measly 258. One Facebooker articulated the noisome feature well, saying on Coca-Cola's personal: "i love consumerism! this facebook feature rocks! hurray pawns in the game of industry!"
However much people rage against the new advertising feature, Facebook's history has revealed that it is probably here to stay. (Minifeed, anyone?) Product placement's fundamental politics shift the talk away from conversations that induce change and focus them on the status quo. So is there any hope for the future? Absolutely. Think of Facebook as the Fisher-Price of blogging. Facebook is a lake. Blogging is an ocean.
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