Spinning the web
Facebook's f8 developer conference this week created a huge amount of news that is stressing the web's ability to analyze it in real time -- an overload that acted almost like a denial of service attack for those trying to keep up. Mark Zuckerberg described the overall objective of putting people (and their 'likes') at the newly discovered center of the web. Venture Beat had a succinct description in that Facebook will try to organize the web around personal user preferences as opposed to Google's incumbent structure of link authority. The music site Pandora is an early partner and described via FAQ how their service will thereby change. The blog Conversation Marketer quickly installed the new 'Like' button and seemed excited about the viral potential for sharing content.
The concept of exporting user's preferences all over the web harkened back to Facebook's Beacon days and set off a huge privacy debate but marketers seemed genuinely enthusiastic about what they've seen. Buzz Marketing went through the full menu and WebProNews called it a great opportunity for driving web traffic. Descriptions and metaphors are still being worked on but The Social's analogy of bigger and stronger pipes for social networking seems popular. Perhaps the age of social plumbing is finally upon us.
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