Uno de Waal

Uno de Waal’s online space covering everything about web2.0, social networks and internet related developments in South Africa and how it fits in with the rest of the world.

Social news sites are more valuable than Facebook.

Uno as Identity, Online, Social Networks

Apr|14|2008

If you take a look at the data that Facebook has on you, and the quality of that data you’d be able to see that they really don’t have that much qualitative data and can only target pretty rudimentary ads.

For making it easier, let’s split it in 2 groups: Profile data and activity data.

Profile data is the data that you fill in - Favourite books, movies, interests, music. Honestly I’ve never filled in this data and I don’t know of someone who has maintained that, it also doesn’t reflect your true preferences (typical case of “you don’t really know what you like”).

Your work details are in there as well - what you are busy doing and more or less in what field of business you are in. People don’t maintain that too well either. Then there’s also your network data - which shows in which area you are, but that you could probably get more accurate data on with IP targeting.

Last but not least - your relationship status, age and sex. Well golly gosh, ain’t that fantastic.

Up to this point, it’s really difficult to target an ad to a person. With this data, for e.g., would you be able to target an Audi ad to me, knowing that I prefer Audi over BMW? I don’t think you can target something specific to person with those details. Would you be able to know that I am looking for a vintage Mercedes Benz SL500 convertible? And be able to serve me ads for that?

I don’t think so.

But luckily, there is the opportunity to expand! We have a whole set of other data: Groups, photos, events, Friends, Pages and applications - which we can lump into activity profile data.

However, none of this data is structured enough to be able to give real value. Does Facebook know that I have an intense dislike for 7de laan if I have joined the following groups:

I struggle to think that they would.
(as a side note - there isn’t a Fan Page for 7de Laan…)

Similarly, the events that I attend are only tagged on a very rudimentary level, Facebook does not know that some of the music I listen to is nu-electro-afro-coochie-pop, but that I also like DJ Krush and really want him to come to Cape Town. Does it take into the account the nature of post-modern, ironic party organisers who label their Electro dress-ups a “Party - Barbecue”?

The photo’s we have of all our events and so are also not really semantic in any way - does Facebook know that I am wearing Diesel (and not Nike) sunglasses, or drinking Amstel (and not Windhoek) beer? Nope. Fan pages are a cool addition and it does allow me to specify the relationship between a product/person/music (i.e. “I like this”), but it’s still a very rudimentary system. Does it know that I like a genre of music (which I haven’t specified on my profile)?

My friends list isn’t too great either - I can’t get any more data out of there than I can from my own profile.

Applications has the best repository of info, but it’s in a data silo. Your last.fm application can’t talk too well with you Facebook profile and make you stop seeing “Beat Bladder Infection” ads along the side, and rather “Watch the new Justic video”. This data still sits in a silo and I’m thinking it sits more with the 3rd party app than it does with Facebook.

Still, at the end of the day I don’t believe Facebook could target me an ad for a vintage SL500 Merc.

Enter social news

Now, on the other hand, DIGG, or any social news site, has much more data on me. While they don’t have my profile data (like age and sex) they can find out what I like and don’t like much better. I click on links and submit articles, all these are in semantic form. If I’ve submitted articles on vintage cars, rated anything up or down, Digg would be able to better target an ad tailored to me. It’s because of that that I feel Digg (or any social news site) should have a higher per-user valuation than Facebook. That data is more valuable and deeper than Facebook could ever have.



2 Responses

  1. Stefano

    14|Apr|2008

    What about sharing links on Facebook? Or merely posting a link on someones profile. FB could scan through the content in search of specific phrases.

    Whilst I believe that social news sites probably do have a better idea of what people like, they too are able to misjudge that. Many people only share headliners: Woman dies of multiple stab wounds, 3 year old baby raped in shopping mall, frantic children spontaneously combust etc…

    And DJ Krush has been to Cape Town, he was here last year. You never attended, was an awesome party though.

  2. Uno

    14|Apr|2008

    I think that’s true, but I think the Attention Data that Facebook has on you, as opposed to some other sites, is very limited. Ideally you’d want to mesh them all together, together with you Google data (Yahoo is going that way now).

    Not all partys need me to be awesome, some are awesome on their own :) I’d want him to come again - because I missed it.


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