Facebooklash
The backlash against Facebook has started. That’s not really shocking news. Everything that gets as much hype as Facebook has recently must have a backlash. It’s some kind of psychology rule that I would probably know if I had ever taken psychology. But I didn’t.
When I talk about a backlash against Facebook, I’m not talking about the “digerati” in Silicon Valley and New York, led by TechCrunch, who get all worked up about the latest thing and then ditch it in fifteen minutes. They’re just a parody of themselves. The first shot in the Facebook backlash that I can take seriously came from a thirtysomething mom in Orange County.
Mayrav Saar is a brilliantly funny columnist for the Orange County Register. My friends and I read her column religiously (I subscribe via rss feed) even though we don’t live anywhere near Orange County and couldn’t have less in common with her target audience there.
Mayrav’s column this week is about how she’s over Facebook. In her opinion, it’s not really fun and it’s not really useful – it’s just some creepy utility that annoys you while trying to collect every last piece of information about you.
Or, I might add, allows college students to waste time, which is what it was originally designed for anyway.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not declaring Facebook dead. Far from it. They’re about to close a VC funding valuing the company at about 10 kajillion dollars and Google is scrambling to ward off whatever “threat” that Facebook poses. I’m just saying that maybe Facebook isn’t really cool anymore. Maybe all those comparisons to GeoCities aren’t so outlandish after all.
What does this have to do with multicultural marketing and advertising? As marketers, we are always trying to get to where the customers are and to associate our brand with their positive feelings for the newest and coolest. In today’s online world, where clients demand the newest and freshest ideas and then only spend money on the tried and true, Facebook, like SecondLife before it, may be shaping up to be neither tried and true nor fresh and cool. Online advertising is a treacherous world where the crystal ball is very, very murky.
Facebook could be the next GeoCities or it could be the next Google. Tread carefully.