Not Valuable Data
While I am on a blogging roll: What is not valuable data? More and more I think about it, and this is only in *a commerce/marketplace selling context*, is your list of friends.
Every time a user communications related application tries to add a commerce layer, they fail. But for some strange reason, a large amount of people believe it is a great idea The-Next-Time-Around. Case in point? MSN Messenger added a layer of classifieds early last year. The New York Times lead graph: “CRAIGSLIST has taken on many giants. Can it survive a challenge from Microsoft?” I believe the answer to that question was yes.
And now in the aftermath of the Facebook announcement, I expect you’ll hear basically the same story repeated with different names. Take my little corner of the world: online real estate. Normally smart people came up with this advice: “if someone were selling their home they could take their For Sale listing on Zillow and distribute it to everyone in their social graph.” And this: “Consider that the MLS is really a social network. Its value has always been much more than as a warehouse for listings….Hang a few features off the core interface, say, a facebook-like profile with professional preferences and other elements of the “social graph”, and the decidedly uncool MLS starts looking pretty hip – and much more valuable.”
Marketplaces like eBay exist because most transactions are relatively infrequent and there needs to be a way to build trust between people who don’t know each other to be able to do business. Sellers want to reach people who are interested in buying their product not their friends. In fact, I’d argue the stakes are higher: you would feel worse spamming your friends who are not looking to make that purchase decision than someone who you don’t know.
Niki - I think we’ll have to agree to disagree on this one. Is taking your Zillow listing and distributing it to your social graph any different than telling all your friends you house is for sale. Word of mouth is an incredibly powerful force in all transactions - even real estate. I found our house through friends of friends, I don’t think my experience is all that unique.
Hey there Joel - I agree that there can be relevance just that the % chances that it will be are about the same as the % chances that a real estate TV ad might be relevant. And the stakes are much higher for irrelevance: these are your friends.
im with Niki on this. i really don’t want things to get out of hand to the point where my inbox / newsfeed is cluttered with “product recommendations” and canned “my house / car is for sale” messages from my circle of friends. my online circle of friends would quickly shrink to those who don’t bother me with such crap. if you want me to help you sell your house, at least buy me a beer first, friend.
“Every time a user communications related application tries to add a commerce layer, they fail. But for some strange reason, a large amount of people believe it is a great idea The-Next-Time-Around.” –> amen.
friendster had branded profiles a while back and I even tried it out. Vince Vaughn from Wedding Crashers is STILL sending me canned messages. He’s annoying and if I wasn’t so lazy he’d no longer be my friendster friend.
all this jubilation and excitement for shit very few (ZERO) actual facebook members want.