Facebook Gouges Google TV
January 4, 2011
The basic information about Facebook’s TV service is set forth in “Reality TV for the Rest of Us.” The idea is that TV listings recommended by friends is better than slogging through lots of channels or, even worse, recommendations generated by a numerical recipe with thresholds that may or may not deliver what you expect.
This service is a fresh approach to finding. The method ignores the brute force indexing of some companies and relies on recommendations. The significance is that brute force search is not in the leadership position in terms of a social walled garden like Facebook’s.
The shift is going to be dismissed by Google. Google will attempt to slot social content recommendations into its services. Who knows? Maybe Facebook will implode. Google would then have a shot to get back in the game. I think that this “reality TV” thing is going to be as painful and damaging to Google as a world champion fighter getting a thumb in the eye and then losing vision in that eye.
Why?
First, lightweight. Recommendations are just less hassle than brute force search. Humans do the work. Volunteer work.
Second, relevance. What are friends for? People trust referrals from friends. Word of mouth works. Different and better than a numerical recipe. (Go ahead. Disagree.)
Third, fits core demographics’ established behavior. For those hooked on Facebook, having Facebook spit out TV shows when one is listening to music, texting, and doing homework is a really nifty attention deficit disorder service. I might be driven crazy. For Facebook’s users, the new service is likely to be a must use function. Habitual behavior means a big win for Facebook.
Google may have to go through its social life with one eye operating at 50 percent. Upside? Maybe Google won’t see all those Android devices using Facebook to find content on the vast wasteland?
Stephen E Arnold, January 4, 2010
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