By this time the analogy between George Orwell’s Big Brother—the all-seeing intelligence agency of his dystopian fantasy 1984—and the entities gathering demographic data from our online activity and browser histories is a cliché. But Big Brother’s agenda was to make sure to stifle uprisings, while Facebook seems to catalyze them. And while Big Brother wanted to stop revolutionaries from gathering resources, the modus operandi of large-scale, demographically omniscient entities like Google or Facebook seems to be to connect the right people with the right products. So is Facebook ‘Big Brother’ or ‘Big Friend?’ The distinction is noxiously cartoonish, but worth addressing all the same. Here are some reasons why Facebook is more of a Big Friend.
Facebook’s ad platform has long been an almost polar opposite of Google’s AdWords platform.
Whereas Google’s AdWords allows advertisers to target massive groups of people based entirely on keyword selection, Facebook allows its advertisers to display ads based on specific demographic information, such as location, age or professed preferences. The progression of Internet advertising has trended towards increased personalization. Beginning with email marketing, companies could only target people who signed up for their services. With Google’s AdWords, companies could attempt to target users looking for information or interested in purchasing a product, while Facebook ads seem to be the latest advanced step towards complete ad customization. As it stands now, though, companies can use Google ads to drive purchases and email newsletter sign ups while the newsletters themselves can be used to tie into other social media marketing campaigns and drive consumer interaction on social media networks like Facebook and Twitter.
Facebook’s new Open Graph platform is the next step towards fully customizable targeting for advertisers.
The goal of Open Graph is to bring every Facebook user’s online interactions into Facebook, allowing users to stream media and share their preferences with their friends without having to leave the site. Spotify integration with Facebook allows users to see when their friends listen to specific songs and gives them the option of listening to that song themselves. Hulu’s integration allows users to stream from the Hulu app within Facebook, leave comments for friends and view their friends’ viewing histories, hopefully prompting them to explore new shows. All of this information floating around is being carefully monitored by Facebook, who will undoubtedly leverage the new massive amounts of user data by offering even further targeting to advertisers. Because Facebook’s revenue stream is based on targeted demographic marketing, it’s a safe bet that the company will continue rolling out new features to keep users on their site while providing them with more and more information.
