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What does Facebook know about you? Assuming you've signed up, it will – at the very least – know your name, sex, age and email address. Many of its 90 million members have also told it everything from their profession and political views to their favourite movie. It probably knows more about your friends than you do.
There's nothing particularly sinister about this, given that all the information is provided voluntarily. However, until last week, it was not entirely clear how profitable this information could be. As it turns out, knowing whether you plan to go see Batman next weekend is like gold dust to sites like Facebook.
This was made apparent by two announcements that suggest social networking is moving in a very profitable direction.
First, the New York Times announced a tie-up with the professional networking site LinkedIn. This will allow the newspaper an altogether more sophisticated approach to advertising than its "Gray Lady" nickname suggests. LinkedIn users that log on to certain sections of www.nytimes.com will be fed advertising that is particularly relevant to them, based on their user profiles. Presumably there will be a hefty surcharge for such targeted marketing.
The second announcement, made at Facebook's annual 'F8' conference, concerns the social network's new 'Connect' service. This will allow users to bring their Facebook account information to any third party website, desktop application or device. You'll be able to log on to your Facebook account via a number of affiliated sites, and send information back to your account via a feed.
Both these moves suggest that the walls that surround social networking sites are coming down. While the Facebook experience was previously confined to one website, there is now the potential for hundreds, or even thousands of sites to be Facebook-enabled.
Precise details of how Connect works are yet to be announced. However, if it uses a similar model to that of LinkedIn and the New York Times, it would be revolutionary – and very, very profitable. Eventually, it could allow every advert you ever saw on the internet to be targeted towards your specific interests.
This is good news for Facebook – but is it good news for us? Some would argue that it allows us to receive ads that we are interested in, which can't be a bad thing. Also, it helps keep the internet free (early networking sites such as Friends Reunited, for example, used to charge members for contacting others; this business model is inconceivable these days).
But as the value of our personal information becomes fully apparent, could there be some backlash on the horizon? Why not set up a social networking site that paid its members for the information they provide? Fickle Web 2.0 addicts would be easily swayed – and it would mean the writing on the wall for Facebook.
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