The Missing Equation on Facebook
Shashi Bellamkonda
AI & Marketing Tech Analyst | Speaker | Connector of Tech & Marketing| Boosting Software Companies' Exposure | SaaS Growth Strategist | C-Level Advisor | Published Author | Revenue-Driven AI Projects and Research
As human beings our quest for news about the people we are/were connected to in real life is insatiable. We like to talk about our community, family and friends. But this is not all we do, it is also important that we want to learn, we want to improve our lives, make our families succeed.
Not everyone wants to login into Facebook and get information that is controlled by an algorithm. The number 1 thing I do when I look at any social network is my notifications tab. I want to see if anyone is trying to get in touch with me or if I can contribute to discussions in groups that I like.
I dread the next activity I do on Facebook, which is to look at my stream. It is fascinating. I can catch-up with people through their updates and continue conversations with people I have not seen in real life for 2 decades or more. But this is a time suck. So I quickly scan the first 5 or 6 updates and shut off Facebook.
The equation that Facebook is missing:
- Search: Ability and incentive to search the information I want.
- Digest: If I had a Paper.li type feature, I would create one on Facebook with news from family, colleagues, thought leaders and even a column for Mark Zuckerberg's community updates
- Voice: Just like Facebook almost missed the boat on mobile, what is the plan for joining the voice conversations?
Facebook is beginning to doing some of these things. I like the weather update from Facebook in my stream, and then I don't have to ask my Google Home/Alexa for the weather.
I am writing this on LinkedIn because the same issues apply to LinkedIn and Twitter. Google strangely is lacking in the social conversations game but is the place where most internet connected folks spend a lot of time and hence the revenue. Amazon is gaining in the Voice Smart Speaker arena and the Gen Y is going to use these smart speakers or as Google says "Ready to help, wherever you are" and then maybe we just ask it - show me all the baby photos posted by my friends in the past 2 days!
What do you think Facebook should do?