(Yet Another) Gold Rush is On
(Update: 12:01:05 - facebook.com/ben.levin)
Tonight, Facebook starts letting users (and business with enough fans) claim their own “vanity” username. Why is it that, even when the word “vanity” is used blatantly and without shame, it inevitably draws a huge crowd of eager participants?
Brand owners and trademark defenders are all gathered around their machines right now, anxiously awaiting midnight.
It’s like Rocky Horror for the nerdiest of online advertising wonks.
It’s all rather clever of Facebook though - they get a whole mess of free advertising as every soap bar and bottled beverage plants their facebook vanity URL in their offline advertising, and facebook can attempt to position itself as the central hub in any brand’s online social strategy.
The paradox, though, is that Facebook can only succeed (that is, become the dominant social tool), by failing: that is, to become ubiquitous, it needs to disintermediate itself, to melt into the background as a toolset rather than a branded destination unto itself. As a business strategy, though, that’s just as likely to disintermediate them from their revenue stream, unless they become focused less on selling advertising space, and more on selling tools for communities to organize themselves. (Think of Facebook more as an eBay than an AOL, if that makes any sense.)
Ooops, gotta go… it’s almost midnight.
2 years ago • Notes