Facebook F8 Conference Update
Key Highlights
- Profile overhaul known as “Timeline” – a much truer reflection of your past events
- Applications being given an extra layer with more social functionality via the open graph
- New Partnerships
By far the most talked about update to Facebook is the Timeline, giving the profile the biggest overhaul seen in Facebook’s existence. Identified as “one of the biggest missed opportunities to tell a story”, Facebook have looked to rectify that by providing their users a chronological collection of past events through their lives with “top stories” being highlighted.
You can view the timeline with images only, or locations only as well as the default “view all”. Adding information to the Timeline has been made easy and you can back date the information right to birth.
Additional information such as whether you broke a bone or overcame an illness is also possible to add, meaning the potential future ad targeting can be taken to a whole new level. Each element added allows individual privacy settings to be added which should be welcome news.
Apps
The whole app experience is also undergoing a new look and feel, with apps becoming more social, not just via Facebook, but standalone apps will be able to integrate much more seamlessly to Facebook as changes to the Open Graph have been made.
No longer can you only “like” something. Soon you will be able to “read, watch, listen to, run, cook” and all manner of things as the more functionality has been provided.
Permission screens have also been overhauled to make it much clearer as to what you are granting access, along with an example story of what could be published to your profile.
Facebook are keen to allow apps to be discovered without gimmicks or incentives and a focus on quality will shine through as people share them and add to their own Timeline via friends.
Partnerships
Facebook has worked closely with plenty of partners in order to get things off the ground, with three key sectors being targeted; news, entertainment and games.
A number of partners have teamed up with Facebook for the news, with Yahoo being the most noteworthy addition, as well as some UK based news sources such as the Telegraph and Daily Mirror.
Facebook have worked with Hulu, Netflix and Spotify to name a few and are really keen to allow people to share their media activities – especially as they know many people are using the internet whilst watching TV.
Gaming will also feel slicker when it comes to sharing activity without the regular prompts of sharing your latest achievement. Most of this information will be placed in the new news ticker and more in depth information provided in your Timeline to encourage users to add the game to their own Timeline.
What does this mean to marketers?
With over 800 million active members, all encouraged to fill out even more data about themselves (and they will) and the advertising opportunity this presents is not to be glossed over. Targeting the right people with the right ads is something seriously worth considering adding to your existing activity – before your competitors do.
Advertising by any scale is laborious and time consuming, but technology such as Upcast can deliver outstanding results in a fraction of the time.
