Out On the Limb

Image via CrunchBase

Ok, let’s be honest… 400 million active users is a serious number. Especially when the average user is spending more than 55 minutes a day on Facebook. Not to mention the other outrageous statistics like the 5 billion tidbits (video, links, news, photos, etc) of information shared each week or the 5.3 billion fans in the Facebook-Sphere. So, how do we over-power the sleeping giant?

It is estimated that in 2009 our giant made over half a billion dollars in revenue. According to Business Insider, most of that income comes from advertisements… either self-service, brand, and a wopping contract with Microsoft, also about 15% from virtual goods. Obviously, many of these forms of income require users to be active on the site. What would happen if members could still participate in the conversation without being there? And, in the mean time participate in all their communities via one. If people had the option to leave Facebook and still be able to communicate with their contacts through it, would we start seeing decline in growth?

A new open source protocol in development could be the game changer that Facebook is fearing. Salmon intends to unify the billions of conversations going on throughout the web by creating a system that allows information to “swim upstream to original update sources”. With this process, users would publish information that would be sent to all subscribers. Next, users can reply or comment from their respective network… then the comments are sent upstream to the original source, where it is updated in real-time and sent back to the subscribers.

Salmon is already being used by a few lesser known networks, Status.net and Cliqset. However, as more and more networks jump on board (including Google Buzz, which is on the slate for Salmon), Facebook will need to consider taking the leap into this next-generation protocol. With something like this in place, Facebook would more than likely lose the momentum it’s been enjoying so much. Many users may grow tired of the network and without fear of losing their friends, will be able to leave. These concerns become more apparent as the community grows, waters down it’s privacy policy, and becomes saturated with advertisements and marketing schemes. The big F.B. may actually have to compete with other networks, imagine that.

So, here’s to innovation.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 31st, 2010 at 8:45 pm and is filed under socialmedia. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.