Today Clicker, the complete guide to internet television announced that it will integrate with Facebook to further enhance it’s recommendation engine. This is a pivotal announcement for Facebook. Just another step toward the true vision that Mark Zuckerberg has for Facebook. Enhancing your life by knowing what your friends are doing. Zuckerberg feels (and I agree) that the internet can be a lonely experience. Individuals are bouncing from one site to the next on their own. As these sites further integrate Facebook how much more rich and fulfilling will this experience be if you know what your friends are doing there as well. When I logged into Clicker it showed me a list of my friends that like shows I love like 3o Rock – how cool is that?
Think of it this way: if you visit your favorite restaurant that’s a fantastic experience. What if you knew that one of your friends from school was sitting on the other side of the restaurant – would that further enhance your experience? Perhaps. But what if you knew that 4 of your friends had visited the same restaurant and they had similarly fantastic experiences there? Powerful. For both your experience, and for that restaurant. Facebook feels that these experiences are already happening, you may have just missed the opportunity to learn that your friend was interested in the same restaurant because you weren’t aware that your friend was there. Now we have the ability to make that connection.
This brings us now to Clicker. They were already doing a great job of recommending shows for you to view based on your likes and dislikes. Now that they have integrated Facebook, you can see who of your friends are interested in the same shows, and discover new shows based on their interests. Again, very powerful. This is also why I feel Google should be concerned: people are going to trust their 3 friends over an algorithm every day of the week and twice on Sunday.
After reading this news on Mashable I took a look at Clicker and immediately they were making recommendations based on my friends page “likes” on Facebook (See screen shot). This is another powerful illustration why Drive Action Digital continually encourages our clients to have a presence on Facebook. If one person “likes” your brand, chances are that they have many more friends that will like your brand as well. The snowball effect is getting easier and easier the more Facebook integrates with companies like Clicker.
Over and out.
Chris Dessi