Facebook and Politics

July 21st, 2006 | Filed under Business, Marketing, Politics, Technology

Why is that as Facebook.com adds more features, and advertisers, that I seem to enjoy it less and less. Don’t get me wrong, I still think it is the pinnacle of social networking sites in that it is clean, efficient and usable. But now that the college-student-exclusivity is gone the site has lost a little bit of its panache. I mean, I got a friend request today from the teenage-high-school-sister of a friend of my mine from when I was in high school. Wow.

I don’t know, maybe I’m just getting old…’cause I’d rather keep track of my friends via blogs. If for no other reason than that blogs provide a little more context than a list of my friends favorite TV shows or movies. Sure, facebook is great for keeping track of acquaintances but I’d rather read what’s up with my real friends. Then again, if they are in fact “real” friends shouldn’t I know what is going on in their lives regardless of whether they have a weblog? Ouch, my head hurts.

Back to the topic at hand…the screenshot at right. I applaud the savvy campaign intern who suggested placing an ad on facebook for his candidate, heck I probably would have done the same thing. So I guess I’m not upset with the particular campaign just the fact that I have to see an ad for a gubernatorial candidate while I check out my friends party picks.

On the other hand facebook is free, and is supported by advertising…so why should I care where the ads come from when I get to use a great service for free. Or more importantly, would I be as annoyed by the ad if it was for a democratic candidate. I don’t know. I guess I’m just annoyed at the presumption that facebook is a good place to advertise for political parties. But it is…I would totally advise a candidate to buy some ads…I guess what I don’t want is politicians being able to buy actual profiles on the site. Then i think it has crossed the line.

I was super pumped when Apple started advertising and created its own company page on facebook in order to create a facebook presence for collegiate Macs and iPod users. I thought it was genius and quickly shot off and email to one of my bosses and applauded him for getting us (Apple) onto facebook. So why does a little ad for a gubernatorial candidate bother me…I mean, he’s probably not going to win anyway, people love Sebelius (the current gov) so what’s my problem? More importantly why does a political candidate buying a page on facebook bother me, when I’m almost certain that Apple is paying facebook for the space?* It doesn’t bother me that Apple is paying for the space…why does the political candidate bother me?

Maybe I’m just turning into an elitist who is nothing more than a hypocrite. I sure hope not.

Oh and I blacked out the candidates name in order to avoid any problems associated with supporting, or rather not supporting, the candidate. Leave your thoughts in the comments or trackbacks and let me know what you think about this stuff. Have a great weekend everybody!

Until next time, courage.

*This is speculation as I looked back at my email conversations about Apple and facebook and no one ever implied that Apple is paying for space. However, it is consistent with facebook’s current advertising based business model.