During a live press conference, Facebook announced 3 new products today that will help enhance Facebook as a better social platform. The overarching theme is giving people more control and confidence over how they can share information and how this information is used by third party applications.
1) Download your personal info
Built on top of the graph API, this product zips up all the info you put on Facebook (messages, photos, videos..) and will send you an email when complete that contains all of your personal information. It is designed for “normal people” not necessarily for developers.
2) Dashboard of apps that you use
This product allows you to look at all the apps you’ve given permission to access your information, the last time they’ve accessed it, and the opportunity for you to change/revoke permissions. This was designed in the hopes of allowing users to more easily and confidently bring their information to any application/context on the web.
3) Groups feature as a collaboration tool
Facebook emphasized that social design is the new way to solve old problems. This groups product was designed to be better than friend lists and algorithms to map out all real-world groups, allow everyone to participate, and be useful in many contexts. Groups will now have shared space, group chat, and email lists giving people control over with whom they’re sharing with and how. Additional features include: a mobile interface, a wiki feature to edit docs, and a graph API for groups (read/write interface).
Groups are not optimized for brands just yet. Facebook insists that pages are key for brands and that groups are really for smaller groups with a max of 250 people.
While these changes are not groundbreaking, they signify a shift in thinking on the part of Facebook. They are actually listening to and identifying needs of their users. While time will tell whether these solutions are helpful, I think the groups feature will allow people to share in a more intimate setting. But as a marketer, I just wish Facebook would listen to the needs of brands and optimize pages and additional features to enhance the brand-consumer relationship.
Have you seen these new products yet? What do you think?
Stacy is a Strategist in the Digital Innovation Group at Engauge. She has an M.S. in Integrated Marketing Communications from Northwestern's Medill School. Connect with her on Twitter @stacycohen. 