Facebook changes

Eden Zoller, Principal Analyst, Ovum

AUSTRALIA: Facebook is acting as a powerful gravitational force on the web for both consumers and media players and this is a worrying prospect for rivals that are increasingly struggling to keep up.

Facebook is a lot more than a social network and ultimately wants to be the premier platform on which people experience, organise and share digital entertainment.

Facebook knows that ramping up on numbers alone – 800 million counting - is not enough to build a sustainable business in the long-term. Positioning itself as an entertainment hub means new revenue opportunities around content distribution and advertising. The growing portfolio of music, video and news services it is offering are attractive to users and are hook to keep them engaged with Facebook and for longer, which is good for advertisers that want to be where consumers spend most time.

In parallel with this is Facebook’s determination to redefine the online experience by creating an immersive platform that will be the centre of people’s digital lives. This is where the new timeline concept comes into the frame that is essentially a digital scrapbook that allows people to organise and share their lives as far back as they choose.