That said, you've got to admit that this is a different phenomena than AOL keywords.

I've seen plenty of brick-and-mortar businesses lately that have a sign up proudly declaring "become our fan at facebook.com/abc", and I'm not even located in the US! I've encountered these signs in Australia and New Zealand, for what it's worth.

In contrast, I don't recall ever seeing a sign up saying "Remember, our AOL keyword is 'abc'" or anything along those lines. The phenomenon is reminiscent but not comparable at all, in my opinion, if only because AOL was lacking the social aspect completely.

From (roughly, from memory) 2000 to only a couple of years ago I was regularly seeing "AOL Keyword: <blah>" in video more traditional (print/real-life) advertising. The biggest example that comes to mind is movie trailors, they ALWAYS promoted with AOL, but plenty of other brands were, too.

Possibly the reason I always assumed that it carried over from America was the fact that, at least in my corner of England, AOL were reasonably irrelevant. I mean, they weren't unknown, or even unused, but they didn't exactly seem like a big player. (Again, this was during the latter part of my childhood, so this is from memory of my experience, not from analysing businesses at the time.)

http://www.facebook.com/McCainRusticChips

Chips! On Facebook!

It will be very interesting to see the outcome. I don't think Facebook will fade away, AOL style, however some form comparison will be useful to try and divine whether the factors that govern such sites have changed in the past few years - particularly since Facebook's users are more global than perhaps AOL's were.

However, AOL at its peak had 30 million subscribers. How many does Facebook have?

Since 2001 internet use has made the share of AOL much smaller and still everyone needed to connect. There are many users since who have never seen AOL services in use, including myself.

However, internet adoption in democratic non-banning societies is going to slow down (saturation) and Facebook is going to be even more integrated. And since we mostly communicate with people from the same country and even from the same city, growth in non-Facebook countries is not going to matter.

What I would like to happen is that Facebook becomes obsolete or too annoying (like MySpace).

It's certainly less than the 30 million customers AOL had. (Customer defined as someone who pays for service).

Facebook has it's place for the people who like safe, controlled and easy. Like 30m AOL customers. MySpace was never safe, barely controlled and not really easy.

AOL lost out because its model was broken - most people found the winder web more interesting than it's curated pages. Facebook doesn't curate it's own pages. It's a microcosm of the web. It is not going to fail in the same way as AOL or MySpace.

I for one am happy for all this stuff to stay on Facebook, and for the wider web to contain the heavy-weight version.

facebook.com appears to be a distraction black hole, sucking all other useless advertising sites and hypercasual games into it.

This is largely a good thing, as you'll now only have to remember one domain name not to visit.

Don't waste your time.

    1 - Figure out what tech the hardcore technorati snubs.  
    2 - Note the subset of this which has mainstream traction.
    3 - Implement something with value (while the techie snobs
        look on in disdain)
    4 - Succeed

Youtube, Twitter and facebook.

These agencies they hire are just selling stuff to the corporations.

I know plenty of people who never go online for anything other than email and Facebook. And Facebook is trying, at least, to take the email part for themselves.

I even know quite a few "techies" who never bothered to use RSS, but use Facebook as something like an RSS feed (by "liking" someone's page, you get the updated to your wall).

That's also the reason I quit Myspace.

Companies now are looking for more fans because it means for them more coverage. The news they publish on their page will show up on the user page. But what will happen if all of the companies that exist in earth and other parts of the universe advertise heavily on Facebook?

The typical user will have then a subscription to more than 1 thousand page and he'll probably end up watching what his friends are sharing. This is exactly what happened to Twitter, when web masters started to accumulate followers, but in the end it didn't work out. You can have 20K followers and barely 10 users read your tweet.

And this is not only linked to Facebook, imagine you are watching a movie and get a break with 320 ads, will you remember any of them? What the conversion ratio will be?

Users will get sick of being stuffed like a goose. Fast.

I am not even sure if I want to have news feeds of my favorite products. Quite the other way round: I like products that have a high quality and last for a very long time. This implies that once I buy it, I don't need a news stream about it for a very long time anymore, either. The product should stay out of my way and do what it is designed to do.

Also, it would embarrass me to advertise stuff to my friends.

But I notice that I don't get much value from these Fan pages. Most of them don't offer me any incentive to come back, and don't tell me much more than what I already know about the product. I think it's smart to promote a brand or B2C company there because of the numbers, but I wonder if the conversions created are all that big.

How, by calling themselves social media experts?

....Oh.

I use Facebook (when I do) in a very personal space. Brands whose pages I have liked are all personal - Get Into London Theatre, my work, my favourite film. I don't connect with any of my clients, or my corporate suppliers, on there. And I've had limited success promoting my business through FB, as opposed to LinkedIn (which I use in a very business space).

(Obviously, what we've done with FB is not very good. That's not the logic behind my argument here, just another data point.)

I do see an opportunity for businesses in the B2B space to use it better. It might now be the internet for individuals, not companies, but that doesn't mean my business shouldn't have a presence.

Currently Facebook might be AOL like, but it won't stay like that forever. A lot can change in a decade on the internet.

I also wonder how companies are truly monetizing their FB traffic.

Just because someone else is doing something does not mean that I need to do the same thing.

If you see an advantage in using Facebook then do it. But think for yourself and don't just follow the other Lemmings.

Unless facebook releases a vending front, like amazon marketplace, that would allow small companies to easily sell goods through facebook itself.

QR-codes are the new hyperlinks.

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/08/17/wired-translatio...

The local red-neck bar has a FB page. Think about that.

If its any mystery to you then you probably fail to understand the point of advertising.

I'll probably only visit their website once, but if I 'like' them on facebook, they can push stuff at me, any time they want, promotions, new products etc.