Internet Marketing and Social Media Consultants

I’ve never been a big social network user, so it took me awhile to get an up close and personal idea of what Facebook is really like. I had used it and fooled around with it a little bit, but never spent a significant amount of time using it.

So for the last week, I got into Facebook. I actually added some friends, signed up for some apps, and checked the news feed religiously. I won’t deny it, it’s been fun, and I have a few rudimentary observations.

From what I can tell, Facebook’s best feature is that its apps allow you to aggregate your web experience into something easily accessible and viewable by your friends. I was hoping they had a decent Netflix app so my friends knew what I was watching, but the app is subpar and doesn’t really work. However, the Twitter and Digg apps are simple and good. If anybody wants to know what I’m Twittering or Digging, they can hit my Facebook page and it’s all there.

One thing that really jumps out at me is the quality if the one ad on the left center part of the screen. I actually feel like clicking on it sometimes. Since I list Seinfeld as one of my favorite TV shows, I was served an ad for a service that puts a George Costanza voice mail message on your phone. I was actually kind of interested in it.

Since I listed “Mulholland Drive” as one of my favorite movies, I got a good ad about David Lynch served to me as well. After this experience, I’ve decided that as a consumer, I like ad targeting because the ads I’m getting are informing me of services I’m actually interested in.

Part of the reason ads on Facebook are so attractive is that they’re aren’t very many of them. Sometimes, less is more. If Facebook was plastered with ads, I may have already tuned them out and not seen the ads that I was actually interested in.

I’m sure I’ll get bored with Facebook soon enough, but as more useful sites keep putting up good Facebook apps, it will have some use even if you don’t go to facebook.com and use it very much. But the idea that it can act as a primary portal to the Internet isn’t particularly far fetched–the way it aggregates your online existence is actually quite useful.

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