Despite Facebook taking up something like 20% of all online minutes in the US, it has always had the problem that, except for photos and a few videos, it is only a link aggregator. When surfing your News Feed, you actually leave Facebook quite a lot, and as far as Zuckerberg (and Facebook’s financial bottom line) is concerned this is a Bad Thing. By bringing the web into Facebook, it is hoped that you won’t ever have a reason to leave its warm, cerulean glow — and if you do, it will be to use Google, Twitter, or other Facebook-scale web services that don’t (yet) have a Facebookesque doppelgnger.
It’s important to note that with these integrated services, Facebook’s tendrils now span most of the web’s “well lit” broadways. It is by far the largest repository of images, it is the third largest source of videos, it’s Messaging service supports SMS and email, Skype integration brings video chat, and the News Feed (and Facebook Likes/Shares) take the place of many news and aggregation websites. With Hulu, Spotify, MOG, Netflix, and others now destined for assimilation, Facebook will become the World Wide Web for a large proportion of surfers.
It’s kind of like the AOL “you’ve got mail!” Browser of yore, actually. Back then the internet was a lot smaller, so it was a lot easier for AOL to cage and corral it, but Facebook’s concept is very much the same; in fact, it’s so similar that we’ll call this re-imagining the Facebook Browser. Like the AOL Browser, those on the inside won’t even realize that there’s a World Wide Web to explore. Everything you could ever want will percolate, in perfect, algorithmically-derived bite-size portions, into your Facebook Browser News Feed. If you’re looking for something specific, just type it into the Search box at the top of the Browser and you’ll get the relevant Page, which will be chock-full of links to other parts of Facebook, or inline multimedia content.In the ye olde AOL Browser days, though, there was an alternative — you could grab a generic dial-up ISP and enjoy the web as it was meant to be consumed — but it will be almost impossible to escape the Facebook Browser. A shockingly large number of web users have a Facebook account — in the US, some
% of connected citizens use Facebook — but once you factor in the omnipresence of Like and Share tracking cookies, Facebook Connect, and the fact that it is (socially) very hard to not use Facebook, it’s easy to see how Facebook has almost everyone’s World Wide Web wrapped up tight.The up-shot of this for Facebook is massively-increased advertising revenue: instead of deriving your needs and wants from your Profile, Likes, and Shares, Facebook will now be party to your exact viewing and listening habits. As you watch an episode of Fringe on Facebook, it will know exactly what ads to show you; the ads might even change as the episode progresses, as the characters in the show mention different products, or as the inexorable Ford or Sprint product placement occurs.
The benefit for content producers, providers, and aggregators like Hulu and Spotify is also clear: Facebook is a huge driver of traffic (second only to Google, most likely) and service providers stand to gain a ton of money through subscriptions, and probably some share of Facebook’s advertising revenue.
The overall effect that the Facebook Browser will have on users is a little harder to establish. On the one hand, Facebook will become an even better tool for discovering cool content on the web — and as most of our time on the web is spent consuming content, this must surely be a Good Thing. On the flip side, you will have to live with the fact that Facebook and its Big Media partners will not only know everything about you, but they will also dictate (via various algorithms and big, under-the-table sponsorship deals) what, when, and how you consume content.
Still, when it comes down to it, if you want to be a bona fide, socially-acceptable piece of the web, you don’t have a whole lot of choice: you can either use Facebook and its fast-growing mesh of services, or you can use Google. In both cases you are putting all of your eggs in one basket, and your persona will be ruthlessly raped in order to pay for the services you use — but really, is that a bad thing?
If the only choice we have is between Facebook and Google, does it even matter if you think it’s a bad thing? It’s like choosing whether you want to live in a town and have friends and hot food and movies and music — or living out a hermitesque existance in the most distant, frozen tracts of Siberia. It’s a non-choice, in other words.
The terrifying thing, though, is that we’re being forced to pick between two corporations that can do whatever they like; they’re not democratic, like the government. You might loudly bitch and moan when Facebook changes its layout, and for now you can still vote with your feet and move to Google, but when the Facebook Browser represents the entirety of the web the only recourse for unpopular changes will be revolution.
This is the true risk of entrusting your entire online (and by association, offline) persona with a single entity — and yes, you should be worried that, as it stands, there is nothing in the way of either Google or Facebook becoming a cyberpunkish Megacorporation.
[Image credit: Raphael Labbe]
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