I had one of those great “social moments” earlier today.  Nothing incredibly groundbreaking (I didn’t participate in a never-been-done-before-beta), but it was a moment of clarity where I sampled the future even though it’s still the present.

@ 12:41…I walked out of my office to grab a sandwich and bring back to my desk.  I had no particular destination in mind — just figured I would walk in one direction and figure it out as I went.

@ 12:43…My pocket buzzed two blocks from our building.  I pulled out my phone and saw a message from Foursquare making a suggestion for a take-out place called “Choza Taqueria.”  When I opened the message, I was shown a map of how to get there and a message that reminded me that I had actually put the restaurant on a list of places I’d like to get to at some point.  Foursquare calls this service “Radar.”  I had listed this place on my Radar many months ago.

@ 12:46…I arrived at Choza and noticed that a friend of mine - someone who I’m connected to on Foursquare - had made a recommendation on what to get (an “awesome vegetable option” along with one of their special sauces).  I ordered it.  Why not?  Social tools and recommendations had gotten me this far.

@ 12:50…I paid for my meal.

So, in 9 minutes, I went from being directionless to spending $11 at a taqueria that I had completely forgotten that I had wanted to try.  It felt spontaneous.  The world beyond my immediate mindset had conspired to provide me with an experience I wouldn’t have had otherwise.

Many services at the intersection of social and mobile - emerging companies currently dotting the landscape as well as many we have yet to hear of - will be driving our commerce experiences in the years to come.  Our pockets will be buzzing with both knowledge and offers to drive our purchases and change our habits based on who we are, where we are and what we do.

Some say this is an invasion of privacy.  I say: if we opt-in and understand it’s value, the future is going to be both fun and rewarding.

Something is different about Facebook recently.  My friends have been communicating with less frequency.  Specifically, when I post: fewer and fewer people have been responding.

I decided to put this feeling to the test by looking at the activity related to all of my posts since the beginning of 2012.  I counted the number of likes and comments each post received and then rolled the numbers up to look at them by month.  The following chart shows my findings: monthly “likes per post” and “comments per post.”

The trend line is obviously pointed down.  On a very steep slope.  Likes/post are down 72% since the beginning of the year.  Comments/post are down 88%.

This isn’t a fluke.  I average roughly 20 post each month.  While that might not make me the most frequent poster amongst my friends (or anyone’s group of friends), it’s certainly enough frequency to remove statistical inconsistency.

This isn’t about ego.  I have often pledged my appreciation that social networks are a place for healthy back-and-forth.  A good conversation is one where there is true dialogue.  Dialogue is affirming.  Monologue, less so.  If we are to invest time and energy into our communities, we would prefer for there to be true and active participation.

There are a few possible reasons why likes and comments to my posts are down.

#1.  I’VE BECOME LESS INTERESTING.  I’ll admit it’s totally possible.  But, as I looked at the content of the posts, it was hard to make the argument that much has changed month-to-month.

#2.  FACEBOOK FATIGUE.  Maybe fewer of my friends are spending time on Facebook? Or at least commenting actively?  According to Compete, Facebook.com usership has remained flat since the beginning of the year (168.6 million users in January to 169.9 million users in March).  While this doesn’t account for mobile usership or indicate time spent commenting, it might render this reason somewhat benign.  Many of my friends have said that they are using Facebook less, but the sheer volume of usage suggests that this isn’t necessarily true.

#3.  FACEBOOK’S ALGORITHM.  (SPOILER ALERT: I’m placing my chips on this one.)  Last September, Facebook changed the way we see content in our news feed.  It was around that time that we stopped seeing our friends’ posts strictly in chronological order and we began seeing them based on calculations made by EdgeRank, Facebook’s proprietary content management tool.  EdgeRank surfaces posts based on our connection to the posters.  The more we are connected to a friend through likes and comments, the more we see their posts.  Our other friends?  We barely connect anymore.

By Facebook’s own admission, we now see only 12-16% of the posts made by our friends.  If we take this at face-value, it means that each one of my posts aren’t being seen by roughly 84% of my intended audience.  With my likes down 72% and my comments down 88%, this certainly seems to be the case.

Why has Facebook made these changes?  Revenue.  Facebook will likely be valued at around $100 billion at the end of trading on day one of their upcoming IPO.  The company needs to generate massive amounts of revenue in order to substantiate that valuation.

The EdgeRank algorithm makes it easier for Facebook to drive revenue.  They can now artificially determine the percentage of posts that we see - whether that content is from a person or a brand.  So, how can you ensure that your posts are seen by more of your friends?  Facebook has a solve for that.  They introduced a new ad product called Reach Generator at their fMC event on February 29th.  This product is geared to help companies reach the 84% of people following their brands that used to be reached at no cost before EdgeRank entered the picture.

Brands now have to pay to reach their own audiences on Facebook.  This is a matter of influence: earned influence before these announcements and paid influence now.

All of this brings me back to my group of Facebook friends.  I am not an advertiser and will not be paying money to reach the 84% that no longer see my posts on a regular basis.  Far from being a business, I see my Facebook experience as one where I participate in conversation with my social network.  But, due to the changes at Facebook, my network has become far less social.  As the trend line continues downward, I will consider using other social channels more frequently to connect with my friends and colleagues.

While Facebook has made these changes in the interest of generating revenue from the 1 million companies that advertise on the platform, they may quickly need to reconsider the effect that those changes are having on the 850 million people that those companies are trying to reach.  Because if the people use the platform less, the advertiser dollars will follow them elsewhere.

With the launch of The Ticker, Facebook has asserted that “lightweight” content communication should be a) more voluminous and b) moved into an on-going scroll to be seen by everyone.  In doing so, they have basically decided that one of the most important features of the platform to-date is no longer important: “semi-private conversation.”

To explain this idea, let’s assume that there have been - up until the recent changes - three different default communication styles on Facebook (each one alongside an example):

#1 - Private: sending a direct message to a friend

#2 - Semi-private: commenting on a friend’s status

#3 - Public: updating your own status

Semi-private communication has been very important so far in the lifeline of Facebook. While anyone could see these activities, not everyone would.  If I wanted to give a friend some encouragement based on their status message, that communication would be available for another person to see, but only if that person viewed or joined that particular conversation.  This meant that smaller groups of people could join around specific bits of content and have their own, generally self-contained discussion. Only those who actively went looking for these conversations (by liking the string or entering one of the participants’ profiles) would see it.  Could others become voyeurs or participants with a low barrier to entry?  Yes.  But, they would have to have a desire to become a part - they would have to seek it out.

The death of semi-private communication manifests in a number of ways.  If I respond to my brother’s post at noon that I’ll see him tonight for dinner at his apartment, my colleagues and clients may think that I’m not focused on our projects (when, in fact, I am).  Further, I may not want my entire friend-base following along with my every move on Facebook.  The platform itself has become a critical communication device - at times replacing e-mail and sms - but with everything showing up in the ticker, I’d likely switch back to those other platforms to have semi-private communication.

Facebook is a user-driven community where aspects of service ebb and flow based on the demands of the marketplace.  Where Zuckerberg & company have made changes with the idea that the community-at-large wants to share more, I believe that many of the elements and operating principles will be re-thought as some well-intended moves drive some ill-effected results.

The following is a POV we created overnight at Digitas regarding yesterday’s Facebook announcements.

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INNOVATIONS ANNOUNCED AT F8

1. Open Graph: Apps

Description: In the early days of Facebook, users were able to populate their profiles with various kinds of apps.  Most apps provided nothing but badge value (e.g.: “what kind of beer are you” or “gift someone an animated sticker”).  Accordingly, Facebook ultimately relegated them to a less prominent role.  With today’s announcements, they are now reviving Apps as a centerpiece of their platform.  Similar to the smartphone ecosystem, developers will begin building apps for use on Facebook.  In some cases, these will be apps adapted from other platforms (iPhone, Android, Netvibes).  In other cases, they will be built from scratch.  The goal in each instance will be to connect a user’s app activity to the social graph.

As Mark Zuckerberg said in his keynote address: “Your apps, now with friends.”  Examples of app types will include: media, (music, TV, news), lifestyle (running, cooking), games and communication.

There are two likely reasons why apps are central to Facebook’s strategy moving forward.  First, they would like to provide users with the ability to socialize their activities in a seamless and frictionless manner.  They described this as creating “real-time serendipity” between people and content.  Second, they stand to create more allegiance for their platform (including even greater time spent per user) as they become a next generation portal – not a start-page for the web, but a start-middle-and-end-page.

Timing: Developers will have the ability to begin creating apps for Facebook immediately.  Users will begin seeing apps appear in their timelines in the next month.  Digitas will be working closely with our clients to determine what apps (if any) need to be built to and to align on strategy in this area.

2. Open Graph: Verbs

Description: In addition to updating one’s status and indicating location, users will now be able to share activities with their friends in new and potentially brand-friendly ways.  Actions like “Richard is driving a Cadillac” and “Emily is flying with Delta” will become part of the vernacular.  These verbs – “driving” and “flying” – will become clickable enabling friends to go deeper into these activities and discover more about them. Verbs will be connected with apps and will require users to install your app and grant permissions to start posting to the Timeline. Verbs are not ad hoc, but are modeled within the Open Graph, allowing rich meta-data to be associated with actions the user can take.

While not all of the innovations announced at F8 were expressly built with marketers in mind, in Verbs we see a number of possible pathways materializing in a brand’s interest.  There will likely be both earned and paid elements that are born out of this innovation.

Timing: Verbs are already available for developers to begin using, but we’re unlikely to see significant (non-beta) apps roll out for 4-6 weeks. Some apps, like Spotify, have participated in a pilot of Verbs and will be available sooner.

3. Timeline

Description: In his address, Zuckerberg described Timeline as a new way of “seeing all of your stories, all of your apps and a better way to express who you are.”  The middle well of each Facebook profile page will soon be populated with a reverse chronological accounting of each user (earliest pictures, activities and posts at the bottom; most recent at the top).  The Timeline will, in essence, replace today’s version of “The Wall.”

With Timeline, Facebook aims to create a much more visual and emotional experience versus the text-heavy Wall offered to date.  Essentially, each user will be publishing, on their own terms, a diary of their life in pictures, videos, updates, maps and apps.  In Zuckerberg’s words, Facebook is seeking to provide “a modern vehicle for the age old process of scrapbooking.”

“Reports” on each user’s activity – status updates, posts, app usage and the like – will be available to read and share regardless of whether that content was published by a friend, a media outlet or a brand.

The Timeline is supported by the same Open Graph functionality that allows us to define verbs – so the app stories that are posted into the Timeline will use the Verbs you have defined. This allows the user a rich view of the activities of his life and allows him to display more information about the activities that mean the most to him.

The following link shows the Timeline feature and underscores the visual nature of the new format.  https://www.facebook.com/about/timeline

Timing: Beta begins immediately for developers; Users will begin seeing changes within weeks; According to the Facebook sales organization, Marketers may not be offered profiles in the Timeline format.  As of now, brands will continue to utilize the current profile template until Facebook determines their chosen display format for brands.

4. Ticker

Description: The old middle-well was populated by a linear accounting of status updates and content posts.  A new feature – “The Ticker” – will provide a dynamic, real-time account of all activity being published by a user’s friends and favored brands.  This functionality will live on the upper right-side of the page and will appear as a vertical scroll much like a crawler on cable news.  The middle well will continue to publish a curated feed determined by Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm.

Hovering over stories displayed in the Ticker will expand them and allow users to interact with the content. Content displayed in the Ticker is not just status updates and content posting, but also app activity including use of new Verbs functionality.

Timing: Live as of 9/20 for users; Conversational and/or messaging calendars will have to be reviewed in the coming weeks to determine any desired or necessary changes to cadence, frequency and pace. Apps will need to be developed to take full advantage of the Ticker.

5. Social Plugins

Description: To support the new Timeline and Open Graph innovations (Verbs), Facebook’s social plugins will also undergo changes. The Activity Feed, Facepile and Recommendations Box will all be filterable by verbs connected with your app. So if users are both ‘flying’ and ‘booking’ trips with Delta, you can choose to show only ‘booking’ in your Activity Feed if you choose.

There will also be two new plugins to support these changes but they are currently still in development. More information will be available in the coming weeks.

Timing: All plugins - both new and updated - are still in beta. No information on when they will be finalized has been released, but it’s expected to happen within 3-4 weeks.

MARKETER IMPLICATIONS 

As we have seen in the past regarding changes occurring on Facebook, one day or even a few weeks is too soon to make accurate predictions as to long-term marketer implications.  That said, our list of implications we are following include:

·       All Facebook advertising units (including Sponsored Stories) are – for the time being – unaffected by these changes

·       Commenting on content posted on brand pages is now open to everyone, not just people who have liked your brand

·       Content calendars may need to be updated to include greater frequency of communication as brand content may be deprioritized in the algorithm and sent to the Ticker.  Since the Ticker is dynamic and similar to a Twitter stream, added frequency may be advisable

·       Earned media may, in certain instances, become harder to achieve since brand “likes” seem to be destined for the Ticker as opposed to the main well

·       EdgeRank algorithm may have been tweaked; We’re investigating in order to determine how this will affect strategies to ensure brands can be discovered

·       Content companies built around the Facebook ecosystem must evaluate their value proposition; Facebook may suggest these changes will enhance the experience of offerings like Flipboard and Pulse (and that may wind up being true), but these moves are also competitive to the niches of those entities

·       The sheer amount of content and activity, along with the number of customizable publishing options available to users, is going to make Facebook a bit of a chore in the short term for users and brands alike as they get used to these new settings

·       The Facebook analytic offering has been updated to include these new changes; Digitas is working with Facebook to ensure that all meaningful metrics are accounted for on campaigns moving forward

·       Most importantly: It will take time to determine how users will consume the various innovations and enhancements along with the specific ways that consumption will affect an optimal presence for marketers.  We’ll be on top of this as we go.