Have you felt like slowly Facebook is taking over the online world?
According to a recent post by Mashable, Facebook now commands over 41% of all social media traffic. That’s an impressive statistic considering over 19 Million Registered users on Twitter (including “non-active” accounts – Source: Mashable). But now with Facebook’s number of accounts growing just as wildly as the Twitter boom, the amount of demographic and analytical data available on Facebook is unprecedented.
With the recent release of AT&T’s Buzz.com and their integration only being with Facebook’s Connect, it takes on a different role than just a Check-In type service, like TriOut/FourSquare/BrightKite/Gowalla etc. While the comments on Mashable’s post about Buzz.com are all negative as of 7AM EDT I feel like those who have commented it don’t understand what it truly means when you look at it from Facebook’s marketing point of view.
As Buzz connects with Facebook you share the Restaurants/Businesses/Bars that you favorite or ask questions about. This allows for Facebook to monitor exactly what you like and are curious to try and hone it down. Later, Facebook uses this to supply you with the correct ads and services for you to later find. So this in its turn is a win-win for Facebook and the advertising business in the ad. Slowly taking over the role of Big Brother, Facebook is able to keep an eye on what we seek on the internet and how we use it. Later turning this into ad-revenue for them, and business revenue for the advertiser.
That’s the benefit of Buzz. While it would be great if it integrated with other check-in clients Buzz offers the ability to give a more Yellow Pages and Yelp type service. It’s a service based on crowd sourcing reviews, it’s more Yelp than anything. The biggest problem is being that they’re late into the game. Competing with the other services, as optimistic as I can be, I do not think AT&T’s Buzz will make it.
What do you think of Buzz? Useful, waste of time?
Image by LogicalZero
