Geo-Location: Twitter and Facebook… A Promising but Murky Future- Part 2

To Tell-All or Not to Tell-All, That is the Question

In part I, the great marketing and business potential of geo-location was discussed. However, this promise hinges largely on the willingness of people to continue to broadcast their lives in great detail on social networking sites. We have all heard the cautionary tales of people losing their jobs over a post on their profile and the questionable online privacy practices of Facebook have been grabbing a lot of headlines lately.

“The marketing and business potential of geo-location hinges largely on the willingness of people to continue to broadcast their lives in great detail on social networking sites.”

Even though geo-location has the benefit of adding location-based context to people’s updates, will people feel comfortable letting a network of others (many of whom they may not know very well) know exactly where they are? There have been indications of user dissatisfaction with social networking sites’ privacy policies and greater discretion being taken by people with regards to their personal information.

These events clearly signal barriers that geo-location applications will have to overcome. Adoption of geo-location by the public will largely be a result of whether people will really want to share their location with others. Though people may see the merits of using geo-location features, the issues of privacy and personal information may be hard to surmount.

Sharing Useful Information, Not Just Location

Despite the threat that privacy and security issues pose to the success of geo-location in social media, the ability of this feature to let people share useful information may help it overcome hurdles to adoption. From citizen journalism to letting friends know about good deals, people appear to want to tell others about useful public information. Whether it be witnessing a public event or participating in a public happening like shopping, people may be more willing to share their locations with others.

In the end, the success of geo-location in social media may rely heavily on whether or not people start to rethink how much they reveal about themselves online and whether any possible uneasiness can be alleviated. The groundwork for businesses to leverage geo-location as a sales tool is being laid as it makes its way into social media, but will the people follow?

]]> http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/uncategorized/twitter-and-facebook-geolocation-issues-2/feed/ http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/technology/twitter-and-facebook-geolocation-issues/ http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/technology/twitter-and-facebook-geolocation-issues/#comments Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:24:38 +0000 chas http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/?p=1463

Geo-Location: Twitter and Facebook… Promising but Murky Future- Part 1

Imagine reading someone’s tweet about the World Cup and being able to tell if they are watching the game on TV or are actually at the stadium. This is now a reality as Twitter announced on its blog Monday the introduction of a location identification feature to help provide context to tweets. Twitter Places essentially helps people know where a tweet is coming from and allows people to:

· Tag tweets with specific places

· Create new Twitter Places

· Click a Twitter Place within a tweet to see recent tweets from a particular location.

Unsurprisingly, its social media competitor Facebook was also making noise on the geo-location front Monday. Company CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed to the press that Facebook will be launching location-based features in the near future.

It’s clear that geo-location is becoming a very hot feature in social media, but the questions remain: what are its implications and will this trend catch on?

Geo-Location: Where the Money Is

One of the most promising applications of geo-location is for well, what else? Helping companies make money. Marketers will take keen interest in knowing where people are relative to their businesses or products. The ability to place highly targeted, contextual ads based on the real time location of consumers could be a real game changer. Companies could not only draw consumers towards their products, but also reach shoppers in a competitor’s store to try and draw them away. Geo-location integrated into social media will allow marketers to move people physically like never before.

“The ability to place highly targeted, contextual ads based on the real time location of consumers could be a real game changer.”

Companies leveraging geo-location will also be able to take advantage of the inherently viral nature of social media. Geo-location advertising is a perfect way to promote special deals or new products as companies could offer discounts, freebies, exclusive sneak peeks etc to people who are near their store or product. Then, if people wanted to share this useful information, they could go on Facebook or Twitter (or both!) and inform all their friends or followers of the promotion with their location automatically showing up on a Google Map.

In addition, geo-location has great promise for the marketing of unused or expiring inventory. Geo-location can help move people to buy an expiring product at a discount or attend an event they would not have otherwise attended. Opportunities include:

· Sporting Events. Geo-locally targeting people in sports bars or gyms and giving them unused tickets. This would help increase brand exposure for the team as well as bring in revenue from sources like concessions, souvenirs, etc.

· Hotels. Giving away vacant rooms so as to increase brand exposure and capitalize on potential accommodations like room service, mini-bar etc

· Destinations. Museums, zoos, and theme parks could give away free passes to people in the area and profit from any other sources of revenue like concessions, souvenirs etc.

What’s Next?

Companies are tapping and integrating into the highly influential social media platforms more and more. The big players like Facebook and Twitter are making serious forays into the geo-location game.

These moves clearly pave the way for an interesting future where businesses and marketers have a unique, highly targeted and potentially very effective way to sell their products utilizing highly contextualized ads and social networks.

As Twitter’s and Facebook’s recent announcements illustrate, companies and social media sites are anticipating big things from geo-location, but the big question is whether or not the public at large will actually utilize these geo-location features. Check back soon for Part II of this series where we will discuss likely factors that influence the public’s decision to use geo-targeted services.

Last week, Facebook announced that it’s making a slight change to it’s wording, with some potentially big implications. In the next few weeks, instead of a user clicking a button saying “Become a Fan” to start following a brand , users will simply have to “Like” them. The change is purely a simple word change, and won’t affect the your Facebook Fan Pages at all, so nothing to worry about there!

Facebook sent out a note to ad agencies that said it wanted to give the agencies advance notice about the change that could affect upcoming advertising campaigns or Facebook strategy. Part of the confidential e-mail read: “Over time, as users adapt to the language change, we recommend that you invite people to connect to your Page by saying ‘Find us on Facebook’ or ‘Like us on Facebook’. You may also choose to put more emphasis on your custom URL than you used to.”  The e-mail also explained how the new “Like” button will differ from the “Like” feature already already in place in it’s user updates.

Facebook is already ahead of it’s game and has done research analyzing use of the “Like” function, and shown that users click the new term nearly twice as often as they click to “Become a Fan” of a page.

Facebook has stated that by changing the wording, they expect users to be more comfortable using the word “Like” around brands and other Fan Pages. Facebook has also said that changing to “Like” from “Become a Fan” will help to streamline the functionality of the social networking site, so that users feel that their interest in post’s and page’s can be achieved in one universal language that they have already proved to be comfortable in using.

Here’s what Facebook has released explaining the change - Facebook Language Change PDF

For almost a year now, Facebook has been engaging in an open and transparent system of governance. They now post all proposed changes to their governing documents before they go into effect to give us, the people who use Facebook, the chance to give our feedback on these proposals and listen to our input.

Most online services and networks occasionally have to change their governing documents to accommodate for new products or services, they just may not tell you about those changes. Facebook however, is probably the only online service that actually engages its user and listens to their feedback..

Facebook is in the process of proposing another round of  changes to their Privacy Policy and Statement of Rights and Responsibilities in order to make way for some new products that are currently in discussion.

Here are some of the biggest changes they are contemplating putting into effect:

Location

When Facebook last updated their Privacy Policy, they included verbiage describing a location feature they were planning on building in the future. Back then, they thought the primary use would be to “add a location to something you post.” Well they’ve now expanded on that and got some different ideas that are even better.

In place of the old verbiage they’ve added the concept of a “place” that could refer to a Page, such as one for a local restaurant. This is all we can learn for right now, however more details are to come, including new privacy controls.

Sharing and Connections

Facebook is pretty much for two things: Connecting with people, places, and things that are important to you, and sharing information that you post with your friends and other users. When you connect with a person through adding them as a friend, or with something through being a member of a group or a fan of a Page, that’s called a two-way public connection. You, the user, can control how the connection is presented on your profile, but it might be discovered in other ways, such as by going to another friend’s profile or being displayed on a group’s list of members.

When you post a link or a photo to your profile, however, that’s a one-way action. You have complete control over who can access that content through your privacy settings. You can block certain people or members from viewing certain information.

This is exactly how Facebook currently works, however they’ve added additional verbiage to make this even clearer to us.

Applications and Third-Party Websites

As Facebook continues to expand its platform, they are trying to give us more ways to connect and share information with our friends, not just on Facebook but all across the web.

Currently, when you use applications such as games on Facebook or connect to Facebook from sites across the web, you are able to find and interact with your friends. Some of these applications require some basic information about you in order to provide a more relevant experience. After listening and considering feedback users, they announced in August that we were trying to deliver more control and transparency to user, the user.

In the new proposed privacy policy, they tell us the possibility of working with some partner websites they are looking to work with in order to offer a more personalized experience each time you visit the site.

Other Changes

Facebook has also made a number of smaller changes to further explain in detail how the different aspects of Facebook work. For example, why invitations that non-users receive to join Facebook sometimes include the names of other people besides the person who sent the invitation. This is because those people have imported their own contact lists to Facebook, and those contact lists include the invited person’s email address.

They’ve also explained the “Everyone” setting in more detail. Users still own any information they post to Facebook, however the “Everyone” setting is designed to enable people to share content as broadly as possible, as opposed to just “Friends” or “Friends of Friends”  To enable this setting, they allow others to see, access, display, export, distribute and redistribute content set to “Everyone”. All they’ve tried to do here is make this even clearer.

Lastly, they explain how users can sync their contact lists, such as on a mobile or hand held device, with information they have access to on Facebook.

For a full list of the changes in further detail, visit their Facebook Site Governance Fan Page and read more. They want our feedback!

]]> http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/social-media/facebook/more-changes-to-facebooks-governing-docs/feed/ http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/technology/bring-on-the-facebook-audio-chat/ http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/technology/bring-on-the-facebook-audio-chat/#comments Thu, 17 Sep 2009 19:06:57 +0000 rachel http://www.buzzwordchasers.com/?p=960

Alright, so you’ve got AIM Instant Messenger, your Gmail and Facebook chat and your own personalized Twitter page to communicate and network with friends and colleagues. But these are simple messaging devices. Why type back and forth to your employees when you could just engage in a large group conversation?

In a couple of weeks, Facebook is doing just that. The popular social networking site will feature an audio chat with the help of Vivox, a company known for its voice chat production in the virtual world.

The new Facebook Voice Chat will require its users to install a plug-in. The feature will be offered in a Vivox application as well as any other application that wishes to utilize the new device.

A great element of the audio chat is that it does not limit friends to talk to one or two people at a time. The feature allows groups to converse. This would make it easier for bosses to delegate tasks in the work place and friends could effortlessly make plans. A bunch of people could log on to their Facebook pages, get connected with their friends and have their Friday night agenda made in minutes. Forget all the time consuming texts, and phone calls that go into such a task.

Who would have thought life could get that much easier. Bring on the Facebook audio chat!

Chic-Fil-A has over one million fans on Facebook. They are rolling out a test “free sample” ad campaign, where users enter their shipping address to receive a free Chicken Biscuit. Users can place this form on their profile or share their action with friends. What a great way to push past awareness and get customers right into stores!

This test is gearing advertisers and marketers up for coupons and other incentive-based ads in the future. Facebook has announced that they are adding new features to help them get the most out of the system, although we have yet to find out what those may be.

In the place of the thumbs up or down icons that used to be on the bottom of all Facebook ads, there is now an option to like the ad, similar to wall comments. You also have the option to “x” it out, and then are presented with a “Tell Us What You Think” box, which asks you why you did not like the ad. You choose your answer from a dropdown menu.

The goal is to deliver more relevant ads to Facebook users. 

Facebook began testing new versions of their real-time search feature with a small group of people last month, and today, the testing phase has ended. 

It searches through the last 30 days of your news feed for status updates, photos, links, videos, and notes shared by your friends and the Facebook Pages you are a fan of. You will not be able to see other member information, unless they have changed their privacy settings to make their content available to everyone. 

Google is also rolling out its own project for real-time search, and its called Caffeine. It could also change how your company ranks in its search results. Two web engineers from the Google’s official blog wrote,

“It’s the first step in a process that will let us push the envelope on size, indexing speed, accuracy, comprehensiveness and other dimensions. The new infrastructure sits ‘under the hood’ of Google’s search engine, which means that most users won’t notice a difference in search results.”

Click here to try it out.

This gives you piece of mind should your Facebook account get hacked, lost, or deleted, and provides you with a starting point to help restore your profile.

It provides an easy viewing slick platform that can be viewed online or offline.

You can allow access for friends to see that you saved them, and it will encourage them to save you too.

It is $2.99, but that is a small price to pay to retrieve all of the relationships and memories that you nurture and create every day. Right now, it is only for Facebook, but they are working on bringing this platform to other social networks.