Ben Elowitz\u00a0contributed an article\u00a0to The Huffington Post with the unfortunate title:\u00a0 \u201cFacebook\u2019s Like Button: A Force Powerful Enough to Save Media from Google Search.\u201d\u00a0 The entire premise that media needs to be \u201csaved\u201d from Google search is a line that has been trotted out for years.\u00a0 However it\u2019s one that\u00a0makes no sense.\u00a0 The article also glowing looks to Facebook\u2019s like feature as somehow being a saving grace for old media.\u00a0 That is extremely wishful thinking.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s go through some of the article, as it gets quite a bit wrong:<\/p>\n
Facebook is re-introducing serendipity. Top media brands are experts at creating compelling content and experiences. Consumers like to share high-quality content, and the easier that process is, the more that content is passed around and the authors benefit from viral distribution.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\u201cRe-introducing serendipity?\u201d\u00a0 Does he really mean serendipity?\u00a0 As in the term\u00a0defined as:\u00a0 a propensity for making fortuitous discoveries while looking for something unrelated.\u00a0 I hope not.\u00a0 The web itself\u00a0is<\/em>\u00a0serendipity in action from both a content creation and consumption perspective.\u00a0 Anyone who has ever opened a web browser or published digital content has experienced it.\u00a0 Serendipity is something the web has enabled since day 1 and is not new or unique to Facebook.<\/p>\n
As far as the sharing content bit, it is straightforward to do this now.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know that Facebook\u2019s like feature changes anything from the standpoint of a media brand having their content shared.\u00a0 Users have been sharing content since the advent of the web and have been doing so in organized, networked settings for years.\u00a0 At least users at the top of the\u00a0participation inequality pyramid.\u00a0 Whether Facebook will flip the pyramid on it\u2019s head by attempting to make all users social is yet to be seen \u2013 it is premature to say this.<\/p>\n
While media companies are effective at cross-promotion, such as the lead-ins in TV, many traditional media companies have failed to harness word-of-mouth marketing online to expand their audience. Rather than a TV \/ Preview guide of available content (Yahoo attempted this for the web in the 1990s until it became unmanageable) consumers will now get a personalized guide to online content, authored by their friends.\u00a0 Effectively, it\u2019s Tivo Suggestions (based on your viewing behavior + ratings) with the added intelligence of your friends\u2019 preferences. What remains to be seen is how aggressively Facebook will promote the passively recommended content within your news stream.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Don\u2019t we have this already?\u00a0 My friends are all sharing content right now using a variety of tools, private and public.\u00a0 Many of them as part of social news communities (both niche specific and horizontal).<\/p>\n
Also, just because Facebook will show me what my friends like doesn\u2019t mean their content recommendations will be better than I\u2019m getting from existing social communities.\u00a0 In fact:\u00a0 I would choose page 1 of a good social news site over my friends recommendations anyway \u2013 no matter how smart they are.\u00a0 Why? Simple:\u00a0\u00a0diversity, aggregation and incentives\u00a0must exist for the best content to be found.\u00a0 Although that\u2019s a question:\u00a0 does the average user desire the best, most compelling content \u2013 or merely what their friends are reading?<\/p>\n
And will Facebook make use of aggregate data to share the best content at the category level?\u00a0\u00a0That<\/em>\u00a0would be interesting, but it\u2019s not competition for Google, it\u2019s competition for sites like Digg and StumbleUpon (maybe).\u00a0 I say maybe because those sites are equally about community as they are content.<\/p>\n
Content sharing favors well-authored, branded experiences, which contrasts with the Google referral engine which favors \u201crelevance\u201d to a search phrase based on a mathematical algorithm.\u00a0 In a Google-dominated world, high-quality content can take back seat to keyword-heavy SEO-optimized pages, or simply newer content.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
This paragraph is simply not accurate.\u00a0 Google certainly does look at \u201cwell-authored,\u201d high quality publications that have gained authority via social channels when ranking content.\u00a0 Google\u2019s algorithm takes into account many signals\u00a0 when ranking content.\u00a0 For trusted media this is an opportunity, not a threat, to gain additional traffic and exposure (also just FYI \u2013 \u201ckeyword-heavy SEO-optimized pages\u201d for the sake of being keyword heavy are\u00a0webspam, not SEO \u2013 and also ineffective as the engines know better than to index such content highly).<\/p>\n
Media companies can spend more time focusing on creating outstanding experiences, and less time optimizing for Google results.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Optimized content creates an outstanding user experience because it\u2019s simple for that content to be found by interested parties.\u00a0Search is a core function of the web<\/strong>, and the proliferation of any new social technologies does not invalidate this.\u00a0 If media want to be found, they should create outstanding content and their writers should be creating appropriately titled pages.\u00a0 It barely takes any time to optimize content anyway, and media need to evolve to take advantage of the opportunities created by new technology, not hide from it.<\/p>\n
Instead of relying solely on proactive recommendations, Facebook is now in a position with automatic login on many sites to passively collect consumption data, and pair that with friends\u2019 behaviors to make suggestions. The better they utilize this data, the more Google needs to watch out, as Facebook can anticipate consumer desires faster than consumers can type \u201cgoogle\u201d into their browsers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I disagree that Google needs to \u201cwatch out\u201d for this reason, at least in the context given.\u00a0 Google is so valuable because we search with intent \u2013 we are consciously seeking something\u00a0right now<\/em>\u00a0\u2013 whether it is finding a solution for a problem or seeking out a piece of information for research.\u00a0 Facebook\u2019s open graph solves a different problem and\u00a0does not replace\u00a0the web\u2019s existing link-based graph.<\/p>\n
Also it\u2019s not as simple as Ben makes it out to be.\u00a0 Media companies need digital strategy to succeed, and new features by themselves on any network \u2013 powerful or otherwise \u2013 do not change this.\u00a0 In a world where every company is a media company, the game is not the same.\u00a0 As nice as it would be that Facebook\u2019s social features or other innovations are going to save an entire industry, that is not a plan I would bank on.\u00a0\u00a0Newspapers need to experiment\u00a0and each find a unique path that works in order to survive in an open information society.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll end with a\u00a0quote from my friend Mike Masnick\u00a0at Techdirt.\u00a0 Ben is not a newspaper guy, but he misunderstands the situation just as they do, so this applies:<\/p>\n
Once again, as these newspaper guys struggle to recognize what business they\u2019re in, they seem to reach out and attack Google, without even recognizing what it is they\u2019re attacking. They don\u2019t want to take the time to understand their own business (hint: it\u2019s never been \u201cselling content\u201d), so perhaps it\u2019s not surprising that they don\u2019t bother to understand the business of those they compete against either. And, if anything is causing the industry to falter it\u2019s that simple fact. If they can\u2019t understand the business they\u2019re in (or how others are beating them) then they\u2019re not going to do a very good job fixing themselves, will they?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Think about it:\u00a0 even if Facebook sends traffic and attention to media their problem is still far from solved as they don\u2019t even know what to do with the current Google traffic (and that traffic is intent-based)<\/em>.\u00a0 I fail to understand why Facebook traffic \u2013 either from a Facebook-powered search, or Facebook likes \u2013 change this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ben Elowitz\u00a0contributed an article\u00a0to The Huffington Post with the unfortunate title:\u00a0 \u201cFacebook\u2019s Like Button: A Force Powerful Enough to Save … <\/p>\n