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COVER STORY
whwytriright 34 Social Networking Party
did by handing out company–branded pens in the past.
Facebook
As a social networking site, the Cambridge, MA based Face-
book earned its popularity by helping people keep in touch
with their friends, or hook up with old college roommates and
the like. Information about upcoming social events like wed-
dings, reunions and even concerts can be easily disseminated,
and easy-to-use search functions can help people locate oth-
ers whom they’ve never met but who share similar interests
or hobbies. Creating a Facebook profi le includes an update
section, where people can discuss practically anything (basic
rules of language and etiquett e apply). Th ese strengths can
also be applied to business. Facebook is all about “friending”
people, which in this case means sending an invitation to
become one’s friend to … well, one’s friends and associates.
Once those people have accepted your invitation, not only
will you both be listed as the other’s friend, but you will also
be able to access the other person’s friends.
And a database is born! Well, not necessarily. Flooding
a friend’s friends with promotional messages and invitations
can be just as annoying as sending out blind ads via email
and circulars. And as Facebook can giveth, so can it taketh
away: irritate someone enough, and they can un-friend you,
thus cutt ing you off from that particular group (and probably
your original friend as well). Another att ractive component of
Facebook are its groups, which range far and wide in interests
and goals. Joining such a group is a great way of gett ing a list
Computer maker Dell
of contacts quickly, since all group members can see your
updates on your Facebook profi le. You can also start your has generated more than
own group and send out invites.
$2 million in sales through
Not everything has worked out for the best with Face-
book, however. On September 23, the service offi cially shut alerts posted to Twitt er.
down its “Facebook Beacon,” the user data-sharing ad system
that launched in the fall of 2007. Beacon ran into serious
public relations troubles by tracking users’ activity on third December 2008, Connect allows Facebook users who choose
party retail sites like
Overstock.com (which opted in to the to participate to log in to affi liated sites using their Facebook
service,) and sharing it with those users’ friends as a “trusted account, and share information from such sites with their
recommendation.” Privacy advocates were outraged, going so Facebook friends. And in late September, it announced a deal
far as to fi le a class action lawsuit against the service and its with Nielsen to provide opt-in polls on the site’s home page
retailing partners. Perhaps a well-intentioned error, if poorly to gauge the eff ectiveness of ad campaigns and tweak them,
executed, Facebook continues to experiment with data gath- that will see the research outfi t conduct (opt-in) polls on the
ering systems, including Facebook Connect. Launched in site’s home page, in an eff ort to gauge the eff ectiveness of ad
Continued On 38 whwytriright
36 November 2009
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