Dr. Neil Hair

Im increasingly aware of Facebook's troubled relationship with advertising revenue streams and its users. Front page CNN.com on Sunday for instance led with the story of consumers becoming increasingly worried about how their information was being used (or misused). The good news of course was that activists managed to convince the company that a change of strategy was in order. Facebook listens! The first step in any productive relationship! As I understand it consumers were cross because having opting into a system they didnt really understand, they could not then opt out of it when they did. Ah the dangers of an uninformed consumer. I would imagine Facebook was rather pleased by the initial take up of the project only to be devastated (financially) by the fall out of actual experience. One of the troubles with Facebook is that its inherently innovative - the news feeds features got it into trouble in the past (only to be accepted by the populace later) - I see similar patterns with whats happening now. I also believe that this innovativeness will keep Facebook strong (much stronger than myspace) because it shows no fear in reinventing itself or drawing in consumers to help in this process. However - that said - I am noticing less activity of 'friends' that have graduated and perhaps this is one of Facebook's main challenges - keep consumers engaged in the process of logging on and updating profiles. How they do this will of course depend on the consumer.