
Understanding Like-gate - bdb
http://daltoncaldwell.com/understanding-likegate
======
recuter
The Open Graph examples given are: “Bob just watched a video on Socialcam” or
“Jane just planned a trip on TripAdvisor”. Even if Bob and Jane are my dearest
friends, why should I care?

    
    
      "A large percentage of them are related to ecommerce transactions."
    

This reminds me of a short lived startup called Blippy[1] that attempted to
get people to automatically share their credit card purchases. They even got a
not insignificant amount of people to share that info -- turns out it just
didn't make for a compelling firehose.

I would only care about Jane using TripAdvisor if I myself was planning a trip
just then, Google works because there already exists an intent to purchase
that they funnel to the highest bidder. Open Graph as presented by the OP will
just be mostly noisy events from people that I happen to know.

[1]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blippy>

~~~
genwin
> Open Graph as presented by the OP will just be mostly noisy events from
> people that I happen to know.

Agreed. Seems the basis is sub-par. It shouldn't be friends, it should be
people with similar interests. In college people may largely have similar
interests. As adults the interests of friends diverge. This is why I like HN
but not FB.

~~~
rscale
This is why I like Twitter, but not FB.

FB is an amalgamation of everyone the user has met. Twitter is a collection of
people who interest the user.

------
alextingle
The problem with this is that both users AND potential advertisers _hate_ it.

Facebook users do not want their news feed to be filtered. That's why the UI
keeps automatically flipping "Sort: Most Recent" back to "Sort: Most
Relevant", and why so many users keep asking how to STOP it.

So, FB users want to see the content, and the content providers want them to
have it. The only problem is an artificial scarcity created by FB. That will
eventually drive users away, to other venues where they can get what they
want.

By contrast, Google's advertising only _adds_ to users' experience. Users
generally accept it, either because it's a mostly harmless distraction, or
because it's actually delivering extra content that they would not otherwise
have seen.

~~~
unreal37
I disagree that Facebook users do not want their feed to be filtered. It's the
difference between 100's of posts I don't care about vs 20 I do.

It's analogous to saying Google users don't want their search results to be
sorted by relevance.

Most Google users NEED Google to sort their search, and Facebook is doing the
same thing.

And hey, search on Twitter lately? Twitter only shows you SOME of the relevant
results in the default view (top results). You have to click "see all" to see
them all. Everyone's doing it because it HAS to be done to show you things you
are interested in vs spam.

And don't you hate how only the best stories appear in the default view of
Hacker News? Of course not. You can go to the "new" tab if you want, but most
people don't.

~~~
alextingle
Facebook users may well NEED their stories filtered, but in most cases they
don't realise it. The expectation is that FB operates like a newsgroup or a
web-forum, where every post appears in the feed.

By keeping the filtering process opaque, FB have concealed the value of what
they do, so users don't appreciate it. Now, they are fiddling with the
unwanted, secret algorithm in a way that benefits them and hurts users - not a
good long term strategy.

------
JumpCrisscross
>" _Blurring the lines between advertising and content is one of the most
ambitious goals a marketer could have._ "

Removing it entirely is the holy grail. Instead of injecting ads into the news
feed, Facebook could selectively promote organic stories that are commercially
desirable.

For example, instead of Coca-Cola telling you about how amazing Coke is, you
would simply have the frequency of stories favourably referencing, or photos
subtly portraying, good times with a bottle of Coke.

Difficult, but much more powerful and revolutionarily more valuable than old-
world advertising.

~~~
unreal37
Imagine if Facebook could recognize that there is a bottle of Coke in a
picture, and make sure all the friends of everyone in the picture see the
picture in their Timeline ... paid for by Coke.

~~~
7952
You would need a human to check that the use of the product is positive.

~~~
unreal37
If Coke is going to pay $X to guarantee that picture appears in all the
friends feeds, perhaps they can spend $X/10 on a human to quickly judge the
photo.

------
cargo8
I can see the parallel in terms of organic and paid content, but unfortunately
as a social-networking medium Facebook's users will probably be much less
receptive or happy to see the paid content than Google users.

Dalton is right that advertisements that are indistinguishable from content
are the best kind of advertisements, but only if they are displayed in a
context in which the ad-viewer (read: user) wants to see that.

Google has this explicitly tied to a query (and implicitly with previous
queries and increasingly with mobile device information, for Google Now). If a
user sees an ad on Google it is almost certainly comparable or better than
organic results with respect to RELEVANCE TO THE USER, which is what matters.
Users express their intent, and Google only shows ads alongside the content
that are directly related and aiming to solve the same problem or achieve the
same goal.

On Facebook, what is the parallel? I'm on Facebook so that I can keep in touch
and communicate with my friends. My intent is to see stories about my friends
about their social interactions, parties, etc. I want to find something to do
and see what they've been up to. I want to see the cool new product they
bought in action and pictures from the amazing vacation they took - what I
don't want to see is that they bought /something/ from Amazon or that they're
planning a trip I'm not invited to. Facebook is about sharing your life, your
past, your "timeline", not your purchases and plans.

~~~
victoro
"unfortunately as a social-networking medium Facebook's users will probably be
much less receptive or happy to see the paid content than Google users"

Google's ad relevance was not always what it is today. As marketers got better
and the algorithm improved, the ads gained relevance to the user and became
more valuable. In facebook's case, marketers will have to figure out how to
create ads that are relevant to the News Feed context rather than the search
context, but I don't think that the social context is inherently unusable for
ads -- it just hasn't been figured out yet.

~~~
ThomPete
Googles ad relevance was always in the context of searching. I.e. the user
informed google about it's intent.

Facebook has no such mechanism and that is it's big problem. IMHO

------
gojomo
Great analysis. 'Like-gate' is a narrow name for the controversy, though, with
its political-scandal undertones and narrow focus on 'likes' and FB pages.
This same battle is happening elsewhere, like in Twitter's 'omnipresent single
column newsfeed' and Google's analogous prime mental real estate.

(I don't yet have a more broad and vivid name, but it should evoke the idea
that this is a battle to enclose/own/monopolize parts of people's
attention/mind/voice, subtly enough they don't recoil away.)

I think the 'single column newsfeed' will soon be recognized, despite its
usefulness, as a somewhat abusive interface pattern. It artificially heightens
the sense of novelty by mixing very unlike (and often repetitive) items. It
artificially heightens the sense of urgency with the rapid decay of position
down the page. Such 'cognitive sweeteners' bring more attention and excitement
in the present but ultimately aren't good for the audience: they're noise
rather than signal. Eventually countervailing habits will develop.

I wonder if that's what's in it for Caldwell's App.net. Facebook and Twitter
_can't_ let users break out of their false-prioritized presentation, without
breaking their promotional business models. So anything which better ranks,
summarizes, and filters items for a user's attention is a potential threat.
Not so on App.net: there you might pay for a less-abusive interface (advanced,
non-sugary reading software).

------
newobj
I suppose. I got an ad in my feed this morning from "Deals4every1" selling a
set of DVDs(!!!) containing a "viral blogging system" howto. This godforsaken
thing was right up there with the very worst banner ads.

------
wylie
This really resonates. I've been integrating Open Graph actions into
everything I've built recently because it makes everything more "engaging". I
would gladly pay to promote actions my users are taking to their friends, as
would many other developers. It seems like the right direction, away from a
broadcast model from brands and towards more natural ads.

~~~
fideloper
I'm glad I got in cheap with their stock :D

We've implemented Open Graph as well for some brands - It appears as a user
action on a brand, instead of the brand directly reaching out. That's an
implicit recommendation from a friend - Much more powerful than a branch
explicitly recommending themselves.

------
ThomPete
I "like" Lamborghini!

I do so for many different reasons. I love the design, I love fast cars, it
signals luxury, it's a classic, I identify myself with the brand and so on.
But I will not buy one because I cannot afford it.

I suspect I am not the only one, I know it's certainly not the only thing I
have liked and so the graph is filled with a lot of "likes" but much fewer
potential buyers. In other words advertisers have very little knowledge about
whether I am in the market for their product or not.

Open Graph is a retrospective tool not a predictive tool. When you check in at
a concerts or a restaurant you are already there, the ticket has been
purchased, the dinner has been eaten, the means of transportation has been
taken. Social Graph know a lot about who you are and who you were, where you
are, where you have been, but it knows very little about who you are going to
be and where you are headed. In other words Open Graph might know more and
more about your history but it knows very little about your future either
immediate or long term....

Take in contrast Google. When I search for a product, a service, a restaurant
etc. on Google, the chances that I am an interested customer is high. Where a
"like" takes very little effort to do, in contrast searching, takes a lot more
effort. We do not do it unless it's somehow important and top of mind.

Without intent the open graph is blind. Without intent it's almost impossible
to distinguish between noise and signal. To repeat. I might like a lot of
things but am I going buy any of them?

Without a proper search it's hard to detect this intent and to know when a
customer is most receptive to sales. This is the primary secret of Googles
success. They know exactly when and what you want to buy. They created an ad-
network where they make money even when you don't. Where Facebook is merely
decentralizing it's ability to collect information about the users, through
likes, shares and other means, Google is decentralizing it's revenue model!

Therefore the question really is the following:

1) Is Facebook going to turn into a search engine querying outside it's own
closed garden? 2) Do Facebook have other tricks up it's sleave we just don't
know about. 3) Has Facebook invented some way of extrapolating intent out of
the knowledge about our past?

To answer the first question first. I don't believe they will at least not in
any forseeable future. It would simply be too big of a paradigm shift for
them. On the other hand the search they have could certainly be improved.

For question number 2) The answer is probably yes. I see them already
experimenting with displaying ads at the top of my notificiations.They are on
their way with a host of new social buttons. They will allow for you to pay
for others to see your posts and so on.

But if those are their only tricks for selling to me, then it's also very
telling for my question number 3) which would be no. Facebook haven't invented
a way to extrapolate intent out of my open graph. Cause if they had they
wouldn't have to use bruteforce like they do today. And this is the Achilles
heel of Facebook. Without a proper way to locate intent Open Graphs is never
going to be a truly successful strategy.

I don't think we are missing the bigger point. I think FB will have to find a
way to understand my intent and I am not sure they are in a position to do
that.

~~~
unreal37
Very well-written response. But I disagree with the answer to question number
3. Facebook can predict what you will like in the future based on what you
like in the past. You are a predictable person. What you liked last week, you
will like again next week.

Let's say there is a particular friend who you always like their posts or
comment on their status updates. This friend posts once per day, and you
comment on that post every time.

Facebook will show you that friends post each time. That friend is obviously
important to you.

Let's say another friend posts 20 times per day, and you never like or comment
on their posts. Facebook will hardly ever show you those posts, except when
they think a friend that you follow closely has liked or commented.

To take it to another level, let's say you use the Facebook Check-In function
to check into coffee shops and you Like Starbucks. Do you think Starbucks
posts will appear more often in your feed? You betcha. You've shown interest
in coffee.

And if you make a status update using the word coffee?

You get my point. Facebook knows more about you than Google does. They are
doing a pretty good job of making the comment about search intent (which
Google owns) moot.

~~~
codeka
But the thing is, if I check in at Starbucks all the time, and I "like" their
facebook page, etc, what's the point of showing me their promoted posts? I'm
_already_ buying their products.

How will the fact that I like Starbucks tell Facebook when I'm in the market
for a new vacuum cleaner? I might search for vacuum cleaners on Google, but
Facebook is going to have no idea that I'm even in the market for vacuum
cleaners unless I go and "like" a bunch of vacuum cleaner pages (which I
presumably found by searching on Google).

~~~
unreal37
If you check in at Starbucks, it's not Starbucks that would pay to talk to
you, it's McDonald's. Just like Google, if you are searching "Starbucks", it
makes no sense to show a Starbucks.com ad.

~~~
johns
Don't sell the upsell opportunity short either. If you buy a lot of things at
Starbucks, you could probably be more easily convinced to spend more on your
next trip.

------
jarek
I would rather like to note that the noise we're now waging a "war" on was
brought on by the very social media providers and advertisers now engaged in
conflict over how much eyeballs on the noise should sell for.

------
namank
The day I have to pay for ANYTHING personal is the day I quit Facebook.

Charge corporate customers all you want but if I ever pay as a user, I'm out.
Make _current_ free features paid? I'm out.

Roll out new features and charge for them? That's fine.

M. Zuckerberg seems like a smart guy who is passionate about the product -
product guys aren't usually asswipes. Really interested in seeing where this
goes. Also, far as I know, there are no proven models for monitizing human
interaction in real lide, let alone in the virtual world. Traditionally, we've
focused on charging for experience, not interaction.

------
jcampbell1
I think he means "Facebook analogue to Google Adwords", not Adsense. Adsense
is low CTR / low CPM on non-Google properties.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
It doesn't feel like Adwords either though. It feels more like as though
Google were to start selling rankings in organic search results.

Of course, Google couldn't get away with that because it would torpedo the
quality of their product and erode their market share because search doesn't
have strong network effects.

It seems like Facebook is betting that the stronger network effects in social
will save them from the forces of the free market on this one. I guess we'll
see if they're right.

~~~
brandnewlow
If you concede that many/most people aren't aware that the links in the yellow
box atop search results are paid results, then Google is essentially selling
the first three spots in its search rankings right now and has been for some
time.

~~~
AnthonyMouse
The organic results are still the organic results. Sometimes the ad links are
the things the user is looking for -- and that's great for everybody -- but
when they aren't, the organic results are still there to give the users what
they want.

If you open up _all_ the results to bidding, you can end up pushing the most
user-demanded results entirely to the side whenever there are enough
advertisers willing to pay money to fill up the entire page, which creates a
much more substantial negative impact on the user experience.

------
rolux

        From the article:
    

The best ad is indistinguishable from content

We can expect to see Facebook deemphasizing traditional advertising units in
favor of promoted news stories in your stream. The reason is that the very
best advertising is content. Blurring the lines between advertising and
content is one of the most ambitious goals a marketer could have.

Bringing earnings expectations into this, the key to Facebook 'fixing' their
mobile advertising problem is not to create a new ad-unit that performs better
on mobile. Rather, it is for them to sell the placement of stories in the
omnipresent single column newsfeed. If they are able to nail end-to-end
promoted stories system, then their current monetization issues on mobile
disappear.

    
    
        I still hope it's rather their users who will disappear.

------
cousin_it
> _The best ad is indistinguishable from content_

No, it's not. "Bob just watched a video on Socialcam" is an ad. I can
distinguish it from content just fine.

~~~
lmm
>"Bob just watched a video on Socialcam" is an ad. I can distinguish it from
content just fine.

So it's not the best ad.

------
dreamdu5t
If this is truly Facebook's business model then they are doomed.

