FocusBlog
Incepand de luna trecuta, presa a scris ca “1 milion de romani au cont pe Facebook” (de fapt, informatia corecta era ca exista 1 milion de conturi inregistrate in Romania; unii romani pot avea mai multe conturi, alte conturi pot fi ale unor straini cu rezidenta in Romania).
Iata cateva statistici despre utilizatorii din Romania (conform Facebakers):
Number of users on Facebook in Romania: 1 050 420
Number of male users on Facebook in Romania: 494 460
Number of female users on Facebook in Romania: 523 420
Penetration in Romania: 4.73 %
Online penetration in Romania: 14.14 %
Avarage CPC in Romania: $ 0.11
Avarage CPM in Romania: $ 0.05
Kubis ne ofera si alte date utile, pentru a compara evolutia cu cea a altor tari din zona:
“Social Media is finally being accepted in Romania as a valid communication channel by more and more brands who choose to focus their campaigns online. This is because Facebook penetration in Romania doubled from January 2010 to March, rising from 6.7% to a total of 13.5% out of the total Romanian Internet Population, estimated at 7.5 million]”
Pana la urma de ce e importanta aceasta crestere a numarului de utilizatori Facebook? In fond, in toamna trecuta pe Hi5 erau inscrisi peste 4 milioane de utilizatori unici romani, dintre care intre 800.000 si 1 milioan intrau zilnic pe site.
(“Peste jumatate din utilizatorii romani ai site-ului Hi5 sunt barbati, respectiv 54%, iar restul sunt femei, in proportie de 46%. Utilizatori de toate varstele acceseaza site-ul de socializare, ponderea cea mai mare avand-o tinerii de 18-25 de ani, cu 46,8%. Pe locul doi se afla persoanele cu varste cuprinse intre 13 si 18 ani, cu o pondere de 36,4%, iar locul trei este reprezentat de persoanele cu varste intre 25 si 35 de ani, respectiv 13,6%. Persoanele cu cea mai inaintata varsta, intre 55 si 65 de ani, reprezinta o proportie de 0,6%.”)
Importanta este data de faptul ca Facebook joaca in alta liga decat Hi5. Luna trecuta, pentru prima oara Facebook a depasit Google la numarul de vizite, in Statele Unite.
“The true value of Facebook and social networks is just becoming clear to marketers,” said Augie Ray, analyst at Forrester Research.
Although Facebook is enjoying rapid growth, it is only beginning to cash in on its success. Revenues at the social media company are estimated to be in the range of $1bn to $1.5bn this year, while Google took in $23.7bn last year.
Google has responded to the ascendancy of the social networking site with its own Buzz service last month. Buzz allows users to add status updates, friends, pictures, videos, location information, comments and links to other networking sites. Buzz, though, has struggled with privacy concerns just as Facebook has been criticised for encouraging members to reveal personal data to search engines.”
De asemenea, Google se mai confrunta cu o problema care poate deveni importanta in lupta pentru suprematie: Rupert Murdoch. Inca din toamna trecuta Murdoch a amenintat ca va bloca search-urile Google pe siteurile News Corp. Ieri si-a reanuntat aceasta intentie:
“We are going to stop people like Google or Microsoft or whoever from taking stories for nothing … there is a law of copyright and they recognise it,” Murdoch told a packed audience of students, journalists and other media professionals.
He said search engines had tapped into a “river of gold” by aggregating content but that the days of free news had to come to an end. “They take [news content] for nothing. They have got this very clever business model,” he said.”
Pentru a intelege ce-nseamna toate astea, trebuie o scurta paranteza despre functiile comunicarii si despre motivele pentru care oamenii intra pe Internet.
Din punct de vedere al emitatorului-receptorului, exista patru functii ale comunicarii:
- a informa-a intelege (de exemplu siteurile de stiri gen bbc, cnn, mediafax etc.);
- a invata/a instrui-a invata/a acumula (siteurile gen wikipedia, scribd etc.);
- a distra-a savura/a citi/asculta/viziona de placere (siteurile gen youtube, facebook, twitter, hi5 etc.);
- a influenta-a decide (siteurile gen yelp etc.)
Evident, exista siteuri care raspund la mai multe functii (de exemplu bbc-ul raspunde la toate cele 4 functii).
Raportul Oxis- Oxford Internet Surveys 2009 enumera cinci motive pentru care oamenii intra pe internet:
A. Information Seeking- The Internet has become the first port of call when people look for information.
B. Communication and Social Networking
C. Entertainment
D. Services
E. Creation and Production
Inainte de existenta Internetului, oamenii apelau la televiziune, presa, librarii si biblioteci pentru a se informa, distra, invata, lua decizii. Dupa aparitia Internetului, acest lucru s-a schimbat. Primele motoare de cautare (Yahoo, Lycos, Altavista) erau un fel de portaluri cu baze de date, fiind destul de greu de folosit. Aparitia Google a imbunatatit radical performantele motoarelor de cautare. Google a devenit autostrada cea mai rapida a Internetului. Oamenii nu mai apeleaza la ziare, ci cauta pe Google. Google e un fel de ziar al ziarelor.
Insa exista si zone unde Google nu patrunde (se estimeaza ca motoarele de cautare inventariaza numai 15% din Internet, restul de 85 % fiind numit the Deep Web). Una dintre zonele unde Google nu patrunde este Facebook.
Nu se pot face search-uri pe Facebook direct din Google. Dupa achizitia FriendFeed, Facebook a lansat un motor de cautare real-time. Iata cum arata rezultatul unei cautari ( conform Mashable):
Astfel, Facebook va putea concura si cu Twitter si cu Google. Dupa parerea celor de la Mashable, prin achizitia FriendFeed, Facebook a obtinut:
- A collection of very smart, ex-Google engineers that really know real-time search
- A social status platform that is arguably better than Twitter’s
- A powerful, ready-made real-time search product
- A small, but influential user base full of early adopters willing to try and evangelize new products
Ultima miscare interesanta din partea Facebook este intrarea in zona dating-ului online:
“The gist of the new product? Dubbed ‘Relationships’, Facebook is going to soon offer a section of the site dedicated to helping users meet potential romantic partners. To do that, the company has been working with Zynga over the last four months to develop games that “synthesize romance and foster relationships through social gaming mechanics”, helping users flirt and get to know each other using Farmville-like games to help break the ice.”
Conform Techcrunch, cam asa arata sectiunea “Relationships”:
L.E thebigmoney.com: “Facebook announced its new Community Pages in a blog post today. Community Pages, with titles like “Cooking” or “Cycling,” are pages on Facebook designed for people with shared interests to congregate and—Facebook’s favorite verb—connect. But it seems that they have another purpose as well: to aggregate information. Here’s what the company had to say,
“Community Pages are still in beta, but our long-term goal is to make them the best collection of shared knowledge on a topic. We’re starting by showing Wikipedia information, but we’re also looking for people who are passionate about any of these topics to sign up to contribute to the Page. We’ll let you know when we’re ready for your help.”
Ce probleme are Facebook?
Problemele Facebook vin din zona confidentialitatii informatiilor.
Exista 2 modalitati mari prin care companiile se folosesc de Facebook:
1. Obtinerea informatiilor despre utilizatori (pentru scopuri care tin de marketing/vanzari);
2. Influentarea utilizatorilor pentru a-i face sa cumpere produse.
Anul trecut The Telegraph scria:
“Facebook is planning to exploit the vast amount of personal information it holds on its 150m members by creating one of the world’s largest market research databases.
In an attempt to finally monetise the social networking site, once valued at $15bn (£10.4bn), it will soon allow multinational companies to selectively target its members in order to research the appeal of new products. Companies will be able to pose questions to specially selected members based on such intimate details as whether they are single or married and even whether they are gay or straight.”
Acest lucru este facilitat de faptul ca majoritatea utilizatorilor Facebook ofera singuri detalii despre viata lor personala. Un studiu din 2005, Facebook: Threats to privacy, realizat la MIT de Harvey Jones si Jose Hiltram Soltren a demonstrat-o:
Deci pentru companiile de marketing Facebook este o mina de aur:
In Statele Unite, pana si IRS-ul face “data mining” pe Facebook:
Dupa cum au demonstrat cei de la MIT prin proiectul “Gaydar” , pe baza informatiilor de pe Facebook se poate prvedea (cu un soft special care analizeaza relatiile personale) inclusiv daca o persoana este gay:
“Using data from the social network Facebook, they made a striking discovery: just by looking at a person’s online friends, they could predict whether the person was gay. They did this with a software program that looked at the gender and sexuality of a person’s friends and, using statistical analysis, made a prediction. The two students had no way of checking all of their predictions, but based on their own knowledge outside the Facebook world, their computer program appeared quite accurate for men, they said. People may be effectively “outing” themselves just by the virtual company they keep.
The researchers found that certain traits, such as knowing what groups people belonged to or their favorite music, were quite predictive of political affiliation. But they also found that they did better than a random guess when only using friendship connections. The best results came from combining the two approaches.
Other work, by researchers at the University of Maryland, College Park, analyzed four social networks: Facebook, the photo-sharing website Flickr, an online network for dog owners called Dogster, and BibSonomy, in which people tag bookmarks and publications. Those researchers blinded themselves to the profiles of half the people in each network, and launched a variety of “attacks” on the networks, to see what private information they could glean by simply looking at things like groups people belonged to, and their friendship links.
On each network, at least one attack worked. Researchers could predict where Flickr users lived; Facebook users’ gender, a dog’s breed, and whether someone was likely to be a spammer on BibSonomy. The authors found that membership in a group gave away a significant amount of information, but also found that predictions using friend links weren’t as strong as they expected. “Using friends in classifying people has to be treated with care,” computer scientists Lise Getoor and Elena Zheleva wrote.”
Desi deocamdata Google sta mai bine ca Facebook la “data mining”, iar un utilizator obisnuit nu poate trage concluzii pe baza datelor obtinute de pe Facebook, lucrurile se schimba rapid.
Daca luam in calcul si folosirea tot mai mare a telefoanelor mobile pentru navigarea pe Internet, marketingul si psihologia au o epoca de aur in fata:
“For nine months, Eagle’s team recorded data from the phones of 94 students and staff at MIT. By using blue-tooth technology and phone masts, they could monitor the movements of the participants, as well as their phone calls. Their main goal with this preliminary study was to compare data collected from the phones with subjective self-report data collected through traditional survey methodology.
Some intriguing findings emerged. For example, the researchers could predict with around 95 per cent accuracy who was friends with whom by looking at how much time participants spent with each other during key periods, such as Saturday nights.
“Data collected from mobile phones have the potential to provide insight into the underlying relational dynamics of organisations, communities and potentially societies,” the researchers said.
Concluzia? Schneier a pus punctul pe i :
“People, including the younger generation, still care about privacy. Yes, they’re far more public on the Internet than their parents: writing personal details on Facebook, posting embarrassing photos on Flickr and having intimate conversations on Twitter. But they take steps to protect their privacy and vociferously complain when they feel it violated. They’re not technically sophisticated about privacy and make mistakes all the time, but that’s mostly the fault of companies and Web sites that try to manipulate them for financial gain.To the older generation, privacy is about secrecy. And, as the Supreme Court said, once something is no longer secret, it’s no longer private. But that’s not how privacy works, and it’s not how the younger generation thinks about it. Privacy is about control. We may not mind sharing our personal lives and thoughts, but we want to control how, where and with whom. A privacy failure is a control failure.
Here’s the problem: the very companies whose CEOs eulogize privacy make their money by controlling vast amounts of their users’ information. Whether through targeted advertising, cross-selling or simply convincing their users to spend more time on their site and sign up their friends, more information shared in more ways, more publicly means more profits. This means these companies are motivated to continually ratchet down the privacy of their services, while at the same time pronouncing privacy erosions as inevitable and giving users the illusion of control.
With all this privacy erosion, those CEOs may actually be right–but only because they’re working to kill privacy. On the Internet, our privacy options are limited to the options those companies give us and how easy they are to find. We have Gmail and Facebook accounts because that’s where we socialize these days, and it’s hard–especially for the younger generation–to opt out. As long as privacy isn’t salient, and as long as these companies are allowed to forcibly change social norms by limiting options, people will increasingly get used to less and less privacy.”
UPDATE
Un articol foarte popular care prezinta un alt punct de vedere despre Facebook:
Dan Yoder: Top ten reasons you should quit Facebook:
10. Facebook’s Terms Of Service are completely one-sided.
9. Facebook’s CEO has a documented history of unethical behavior.
8. Facebook has flat out declared war on privacy.
7. Facebook is pulling a classic bait-and-switch.
6. Facebook is a bully.
5. Even your private data is shared with applications.
4. Facebook is not technically competent enough to be trusted.
3. Facebook makes it incredibly difficult to truly delete your account.
2. Facebook doesn’t (really) support the Open Web.
1. The Facebook application itself sucks.
“Facebook gets you to share information that you might not otherwise share, and then they make it publicly available. Since they are in the business of monetizing information about you for advertising purposes, this amounts to tricking their users into giving advertisers information about themselves.”
If you enjoyed this article, please consider sharing it!
