Foreward
A few months ago I tried to estimate the worth of my Facebook account. The idea was, to see how much money will I need to be offered to delete my Facebook profile and create a new one.
- I will have to reconnect with friends (An hour of work – 30$)
- Lose my status updates and comments (not really important – 10$)
- Retag all my photos taken by other people (big problem – 100$)
- Lose my standings in various games (don’t really care – 0$)
Not that much, ~140$ – The price of many software packages. That is all that would take for me to create a new facebook user or get the (presumably) same functionality somewhere else.
So if you are Facebook, and you plan to become THE social identity for ever and ever (and one day finally roll out a full P2P payment system, put PayPal out of its misery, allow real micro-payments, p2p loans, slowly become the defacto bank for all our online transactions and finally get a revenue model that will jump you from a 10B$ to a 300B$ company). What would you do ?
The logical thing, you increase the 140$ to 1,400$.
So you introduce.. *drum roll*.. Facebook Connect !
A nifty, useful and harmless (?) feature. No more signup forms, no more poor conversion. An answer to both users and webmasters alike. I have been clicking away at the little blue button non stop, happily waving my password managers goodbye.
So wait.. about the leg
You know how you go out drinking all night and wake up the next morning feeling violated and with your leg hand-cuffed to the radiator ?
[..long story censored..]
I decided to re-evaluate my “cost to leave Facebook” price. And a new item poped up on the list:
- Cost of losing all the information I have added on sites where I have nothing but Facebook connect – 500$ and rising rapidly.
On many sites, once you register with facebook connect, there is no way back. (Poor design? Yes! Lazy? Yes! Fact of life ? Yes!).
With every day that passes, my ties to Facebook rise across multiple sites in parallel. But with the UX failures of OpenID and no real alternative in sight.. I am doomed.
Granted it is not dire yet, not yet a time for leg chewing.. but a good time to ask, “Does anyone have the key ?”.. The radiator is getting hotter…
OpenID is indeed a mess (as is the Android appstore, so I hear) but Facebook had its own share of trouble, such as Facebook Beacon, and the Scamville incident. It’s going to be a bumpy road.
P.S. your analogy has left me .. strangely aroused.
- Bubba
Michael
7 Mar 10 at 00:25
And you say you can’t write. Right. As if I’m going to believe THAT.
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7 Mar 10 at 09:07
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How I got my leg tied to the radiator because of Facebook
7 Mar 10 at 15:58
“Loose my standings in various games” … Set them loose? Or lose them?
Skeomorph
7 Mar 10 at 18:27
@Skeomorph – Fixed, thanks
BorisDinkevich
7 Mar 10 at 18:49
Maybe next time you’ll sign up with a disposable email to all of those services next time!! If a picture is worth a thousand words, in this case a disposable email is worth a thousand dollars.
Richard
7 Mar 10 at 19:47
I liked the inviting post title. Good thinking
I personally use much more my Google account than facebook connect. This has to do with Google providing *many* useful services, not just social network (the only thing they lack).
Now, about calculating the cost to moving to another provider: you calculation is flawed, my friend. You suppose that migration is a one way street in which the only thing you have to do, is move yourself. But what about your friends? How exactly are they gonna follow you to your new provider? Facebook doesn’t support OpenSocial, and is not going to. So while you may move to another provider, your friends will stay behind. And how expensive is that?
Mike
10 Mar 10 at 16:02
@Mike I am assuming that if I ever move, it will be to a competing network or product (that will have all similar features and more). So my I will need to “find” my friends in the new network (and thats part of the calculation).
But all in all, Facebook is here to stay. Unlike Twitter who’s days are numbered. But that is for another post
BorisDinkevich
10 Mar 10 at 16:50