Follow the bouncing ball:
- Even though people bitch about it all the time, Facebook is a fairly dominant platform.
- That said, it has some issues.
- Especially with teenagers.
- (Although buying Instagram was a good play.)
- Its core business, though, is really the intersection of Big Data and advertising. (Much like Google.)
- So even if young people are shying away, well … they need to start taking over other areas.
- Like your work.
- Or, ahem, your home.
That last link is off some new news today from their F8 conference, where they basically announced they’re getting into the Internet of Things. If you don’t know what that means, read this. (Some people call it “The Telemetric Age.”)
Alright, so … why would Facebook (a social company) want to be in bed with the Internet of Things? Well, here’s why:
“A couple of years from now, all of the devices connected to us and each other are going to be just one seamless flow of information,” said Roost CEO Roel Peeters. “Facebook is making a major play in positioning themselves as a central cloud backend for IoT. When Facebook makes a move like this, people shouldn’t underestimate what that means. They’re providing the infrastructure that enables developers in a simple and straightforward way to build on top of the Facebook platform–they’re just expanding their reach into a new developer community. Facebook is embracing a new category of devices that will be coming online over the next ten years.”
Now consider:
- Facebook is about to host New York Times content, essentially.
- They’re about to host videos for others, which could hurt YouTube down the line.
- They’re currently cornering the market on work, news delivery, and now maybe the Internet of Things. Can they be stopped?
On a day when pics of Jesse Eisenberg as Lex Luthor came out, kinda interesting that the man he once played — Mark Z, baby! — may be one of the true modern-era villains (or at least corporate-era hijackers of everything).
