Note: This post first appeared back in December after Facebook inadvertently flipped the switch on some of its Pages accounts. Ours was one of them, we reported this, and our servers crashed because the hits were so high. Facebook officially rolled out the change today.
UPDATE: Note that we weren’t meant to see these new features just yet. As they were rolled out, Feedback took quick screenshots and analyzed the changes. Shortly after (as in, minutes) Facebook took itself off the internet for nearly 30 minutes in order to fix the changes, saying some prototypes had inadvertently gone live.
Hello from snowy Virginia!
Facebook unleashed a number of interesting tweaks today, but none so significant as the addition of the Page Login concept for administrators of Facebook Pages.
Now when you visit a Page you are an admin of, you can actually comment as you (previously when admins commented on a Page they administered it only posted as though the Page itself was responding). You can do this because you have an option to essentially login to Facebook as the Page.
When you do this, you then see the world as the Page, complete with a newsfeed wall – and in fact all of the Notifications are now the Notifications of the Page.
As the Page, you post as the Page, Comment as such, ask Questions (now integrated into Pages) and more. So now that you ARE the Page, how do you get back to being you? In the upper right, you can switch back to yourself, referred to as the, “primary account” and login.
Other tweaks to include the disappearance of Tabs; Photos accessed through Notifications create a pop-up window for browsing; and a new face-recognizing, Photo-tagging feature is also being rolled out. There’s a new version of Comments, based on Questions, being trotted out as well.
Charles Barkley will say something unintentionally hilarious.
Facebook will emulate what it doesn’t buy.
On the latter point, Wednesday evening Facebook debuted Places. The premise and execution of Facebook Places is remarkably similar to the first two sentences anyone may use to describe any number of check-in applications: It’s a way to share your actual location with others online; it also allows you to observe where others have checked in. Where many other applications seek to go from that starter definition, be it MyTown with games, Foursquare with tips, Gowalla with stickers, or ShopKick with deals, Facebook has simply stopped limply (but maybe effectively) at the first point of entry.
There’s a few other tricks to Facebook Places, and the following video, dripping with a sincerity that suggests they have suddenly figured out something others haven’t, demonstrates them:
Also inevitable is that Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal will be given a test run before most other humans. Unlike his usually predictably estatic review of Apple products (generally done in time for Steve Jobs to use an actual Mossberg quote as a part of his Keynote presentations), Walt was actually a bit matter-of-fact about Facebook Places. Not cold or harsh, just… well, “Meh” would probably be the most effusive meta-adjective I’d use.
This is because what may become the most short-term-advantageous thing about Places is what it does for others, including those other check-in services. The APIs that could come streaming out could hook into and help fuel the growth of any number of companies Facebook as threatened or tried to buy recently, several of whom (Gowalla, Foursquare and Yelp) actually appeared in some form on stage with Facebook for Places’ debut. And yes, businesses can claim their “Place” via a Page as we and others mused months ago.
And what about long-term? Well you can better believe Facebook didn’t debut this to merely dip a toe in. Cross-platform geo-location ads, sacks of data on visitations and total domination of the “place” space is clearly a mid-term goal. Actual quote from Zuckerberg: “…certainly you can imagine these things in the future.”
We have been recently musing on the concept of “place” (including, “How Location Could Change The Future of Pages” last March) insofar as the web toys with tying itself to real-world geographies and the inherent opportunity and fear laden in those watching this wrestling match happen. But one thing we’ve always said about Facebook — their nearest, truest competitor in a spiritual sense was never MySpace, but Windows. They want to be the start, constant and end of the web for many people — the entry point in. And for many, they are. So now marry location ontop of that and you can begin to see how powerful they could become for the general public. For and to the general public, I should say. Being in Facebook, as a valid location that people actually visit in real life as well as “Like” could become the equivalent of having your name and address in the phone book in the 80′s and being a store that’s in the Mall. You want to be “seen” there- and now you can, by friends who aren’t even nearby to see you.
This, of course, begs the privacy question. But if we rest for a moment and assume that this is about who you allow to see your location, we can hopefully still talk about “place” and Facebook’s role in it in a rational fashion. I could choose to not tell a single friend where I was on Facebook and still find it incredibly valuable to know that a restaurant I hear about in Richmond, VA called “Strange Matter” has been visited by several of my friends, I could reference it in a Status Update and get real recommendations of what to eat there and tips such as bringing your own quarters for the vintage arcade games. 3/4 of that scenario already happened pre-Places, but now I could potentially verify that it’s a cool place that several of my less chatty friends have also patronized recently. It becomes an early indicator for me in a single search, allowing me then to pursue more info through other means (Yelp reviews, call-outs for other recommendations on Twitter, etc.).
Facebook Places doesn’t change the game as much as it does solidify it, make it whole and, likely, make it ubiquitous. What it does more than really innovate is fire a cannon in a battle previously fought by slingshots as it brings its half-a-billion active audience into the check-in game. But don’t be distracted by the battle to see whose or what type of check-in system wins. Instead, start to look ahead, with us, at what this will mean for the intersection of real and web location in the years ahead.
Do you have time to search the web everyday to find the newest social media tools? If the answer is no, then you have come to the right place. I have searched the World Wide Web for social media information all week, and stumbled upon a few favorites along the way. Here are my picks of the week:
Wave Goodbye..to Google Wave:
On Wednesday, Google announced that they planned to shut down the product next year. One of the most hyped products of 2009 received little attention after its launch. On the Official Google blog, it was explained that despite having “numerous loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked.”
The New and Improved Flickr:
Flickr redesigned its photo pages by updating navigation, context and photo size. Flickr now offers:
Photos that are are 28% larger
Additional navigation buttons above photos and on the sidebar that make for an easier photo viewing experience.
“story-sharing,” making it easier to find the who, what, where, when, and why details about a photo.
Social Networking Dominates Our Time Spent Online:
Nielsen stats reveal that social networking now tops any other online activity. In June 2010, 22.7% of our time spent on the web goes to social networking, with the closest rival activity being online games, which is 10.2%. That means that we spend twice as much time on social networks than any other activity.
Customize Your Gowalla:
Gowalla now allows users to customize their passports. They will provide a few themes to choose from, or users can create their own. As Tech Crunch reported, co-founder Josh Williams said “This is part of a series of features we’ll be rolling out in the next couple of months to allow people and brands a greater level of personalization for their passport and spot places.”
Google & Verizon in Talks:
Google and Verizon are in talks about an agreement that would allow content creators to pay Verizon to get their online content to internet users more quickly, and give them higher priority in Google search. This is a big deal, because, as the New York Times reported, “Such an agreement could overthrow a once-sacred tenet of Internet policy known as net neutrality, in which no form of content is favored over another.”
Dean of Feedback provides a quick walkthrough of the Facebook and Twitter features coming to XBox Live users in November. These two special versions of the apps include some interesting features and some equally interesting omissions. Find out how XBox 360 users will connect in this video.
