#frictionless experience

After missing the live stream of f8* yesterday afternoon, I have been watching the videos and reviewing the chatter online. Here I have a quick summary of the key changes presented in the 75 minute presentation and what they will mean for marketers in the coming weeks and months. Just in case you're wondering, I only missed it because I was on an IAB panel talking about how social media is changing consumer engagement patterns - fitting no? ;)

1) Facebook Timeline. 

What is it? The biggest change since the news feed rolled out in 2006. Basically, Facebook will gather a user's activity on an on-going timeline, so it is a picture of the person over time vs. just a moment in time.  Take a peek at this video:

How does this matter? Although there was no specific mention on how this will affect brands, I expect it will influence brand pages (imagine a brand history of sorts) it will really elevate the current brand page to allow for a richer experience with true emotional connection potential. It will also have some unique targeting/segmentation opportunities further down the line. Want to give it a try before it officially launches in a couple weeks? Step by step instructions here

2) The Ticker. 

What is it? This is the highly critiqued change to the Facebook platform on Wednesday where a 'Ticker' appeared in the Right hand corner streaming all the updates that would normally have appeared in the News feed. This serves two purposes: 1) it removes updates about activities (like logging in a Nike+ run or downloading a coupon) from the actual news feed area; 2) it also launches a new social app that expands the like to include Read, Listen and Watch. Facebook partnered for their launch with Hulu, Veevo, Spotify and Netflix to name a few media partners to deliver a fully functioning "serendipity experience" of sharing with your friends. But the experience can well beyond entertainment content to include recipes, shopping, going to restaurants/bars or sports activities.

How does this matter? It's a fact that consumers are becoming less open to sharing their activities with friends to avoid the annoyance factor of 'over' sharing. This change will allow consumers over how their activities are shared (via more relevant verbs) and more importantly take them out of the news feed without compromising the richness of the data feeding into the Social Graph. This will have a positive impact on earned and shared media impressions for brands as well. 

3) Frictionless Experience.

What is it? In an attempt to streamline app user experiences, Facebook is doing away with the need to prompt users to "share/don't share". It's likely that Facebook will face some heat over frictionless publishing as reduced publishing control usually does raise privacy hackles in the digital space (as Facebook has weathered in the past).

How does this matter? It will be critical for brands to tread carefully here as it will take consumers time to get accustomed to this new way of experiencing the social space. Facebook has traditionally pushed it's users slightly beyond their comfort level in the past, being sensitive to the point where consumers will see the delight/benefit from this exceeding the imposition on their privacy will be key.

That's pretty much it. With over 500 Million users logged in globally in one day, these platform changes are bound to drive some major shifts in how consumers behave online. I am particularly anxious to see how new social app changes will translate to the Canadian market place where publishers are still sensitive to controlling content experiences within their environments. It's interesting to note the Netflix will actually roll out in Canada before the US (due to some old law that is being lobbied to change as we speak)...

I realize all these changes seem to be overshadowed right now with all the negative back lash around the changes from earlier this week (and possibly more to come thanks to the 'Frictionless Experience'. But having gone through at least a dozen website relaunches, from canada.com to Foodtv.ca to Yahoo, in my career (angry news junkies can be pretty scary, let me tell you!) I am confident Facebook will weather this storm. Don't get me wrong, Google+ is amazing, but I do believe it will always be more of an intellectually driven sharing and conversation environment vs. the serendipitous place to share 'likes' with friends that Facebook is fast becoming. But more on that in an upcoming post!