How Will The Web Change As A Result Of Facebook Open-Graph
A few months ago Facebook held their annual F8 conference and announced what could be this year’s biggest change on the web. CEO Mark Zuckerberg described a new concept dubbed ‘open graph’ designed to integrate Facebook with the rest of the internet. The concept will fundamentally share the information about an individual’s interests, friends and tastes, something that is gold dust for marketers. It will allow websites to access this information even if the user has never visited it before. Why? To create an unprecedented personalisation of the web.
Websites that fully participate like Yelp.com can allow you to connect via your profile which will give them access to any information you have made public. This information will present you with tailored information about restaurants or music venues that you might be interested in. It is something you might find familiar if you are a user of Amazon.com, every time you visit the site it will give you personalised recommendations based on your previous purchases. But Zuckerberg thinks this is not enough.
Many sites have previously used the application ‘Facebook Connect’ which allows you share information from a site on your profile for example; “Dave has just bought tickets to see Lady Gaga @ the O2 Arena”. However Facebook connect could only store the data for 24 hours and companies were not able to gather any useful information from it.
Once Open-graph is launched, you will experience unusually personalised online shopping; you may only see products relevant to you, thus increasing the chances of you being ‘converted’. More consumers could be delivered to online shops via Facebook than Google as users share an increasing amount of information with each other over social media.
Facebook credits are a step closer to real money! Facebook credits have been around for a few years now and have so far only been used to buy and play apps such as Farmville or give gifts to your friends, but with the integration of open graph, what is to stop online stores accepting payments by Facebook credits? This would mean you never had to pull our your credit card or enter a PayPal password again, using one account to manage all your online spending. Facebook would obviously take a cut of this; well they need to make money somehow! One thing is for sure, they need a catchier name than Facebook credits.
Many companies will need to alter their website’s SEO and PPC campaigns to integrate with ‘social optimisation’, something that could change the internet in a big way.