A co – worker sent me a link to this article on SFGate.com. In the article, we are presented with some of the billionaires found on the Forbes list of the world’s richest people, who also happened to reside right here in California. The list featured some of the usual stars including Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and even Larry Ellison. However, I was shocked to read one new name on the list, Mark Zuckerberg. At 23, Zuckerberg is the youngest on the list and he is believed to be worth a cool $1.5 billion. I am proud of Zuckerberg, don’t get me wrong, but this leads me to Facebook, his problem child.
I logged into Facebook the other day. A friend from my old job had added me and I wanted to login and return the favor. Doing that, I was confronted with an onslaught of group invites, party and social gathering invites, and of course the ever popular application invites, all of which have now become rampant on Facebook as every Tom, Dick, and Harry is striving to make a name for him/herself in one way or another. Whether it be to promote a party, a new website, or a new Facebook application, these mini marketing moguls have turned Facebook into something else, something that I consider to be some what evil.
In the beginning…
I can remember a time when Facebook was still looking to find itself. Naysayers were calling it the rip off of ConnectU.com. They made mention to the privacy concerns, this one is still an issue today, and they just couldn’t quite get their heads around it. I was a senior at Northeastern when it began to spiral up. Facebook faced opposition from every angle, not to mention the bigger beast in the room, Myspace. Of course, Zuckerberg would come out shining and taking his money all the way to the bank. One of my college professors at this time looked to a classroom full of students and he told us that we were the most important demographic. To a marketer, we represented a new source of big cash. College students in general are rising stars in a marketer’s eye. We will leave our prestigious colleges and universities and go on to make more money than our parents in most cases. The marketer’s of the world want to see to it that this money stays in their pockets. The best way to do this is to get us at the ripe age when we can make our own decisions and align ourselves with a particular product or brand before we enter the work force. By doing this they are ensuring that they have buyers for life.
Zuckerberg’s Legacy?
What Facebook has done is tear down a huge wall between us and them. For years now big business has turned to Facebook to tap a younger audience, a collegiate crowd. Combine the crowding effect of advertisers with a social network that’s still coming into it’s own, and you have a new Facebook. Social applications have become the norm among the Facebook crowd. They are the new way for a budding entrepreneur to make wealth off of a good idea. I have to hand it to Zuckerberg for creating a social network of this size and depth, but I hope that he can reign in his problem child before it grows up. I for one am stuck with Facebook for now. As much as I cannot stand another annoying invite, crazy request, or silly application, I have this addictive need to stay connected.