6 wishes to keep facebook relevant

It’s here, it’s cool and now all our friends have given in to the peer pressure and have signed up. Now that we’ve setup our profiles and added all the widgets that help you score cool points, what’s next with facebook? Some in the media are already predicting its demise, or stating that people will move on to the next coolest thing. That may be true…but until that next thing manifests itself, I have some thoughts on what I think would make facebook a better place for us all:

1) RSS all the way. Why not allow ALL content within your profile AND groups be exportable through RSS or through a widget builder that will allows user to repurpose existing content on their own personal blogs, sites, or communities? Seems only logical…and it will make groups more viral & relevant again.

2) Be nicer to outsiders.  Allow assets from other social networking sites to be imported into facebook, and allow facebook profile info to be exported to others too. Kind of like a universal avatar - a concept that has been discussed here and in the blogsphere. If facebook is truly going to become the new platform within the internet platform, they need to do this. It will also make it easier for marketers to reach and provide relevant messaging to a targeted audience. Sweet.  

3) Stop being so darn self-centered. I’m talking to you. Yes you. Your entire facebook profile is about you. You only add applications that improve your social standing through karma points, bragging about travel destinations and competing for the most number of friends while being a top friend the most often as well.   It’s not your fault - facebook is setup to be a self-propagating self promotion tool. In the old days of web 1.0, we used to join forum communities / discussion boards. They were highly effective in community building because every time somebody added content or responded to your post, you were notified via email. Facebook NEEDS this in the worst way for their groups to stay relevant beyond the first week a group is setup.  It will never reach its potential as a true community tool until they figure out how to leverage the power of groups.  

4) Friend categorization. I know I can choose who can see my limited profile and define what that means…but that’s not enough now that facebook is more then a friends network. It’s becoming a professional network too…and scarier still….our parents are starting to come online too. Do you really want your mother to have the same access to your friends network as anybody else? Maybe you do… then maybe you are a momma’s boy too.

5) Optimize the mobile channel. m.facebook.com kicks butt. Text alerts and commands we can do through the shortcode stack are awesome too. I can go a week or more without going to the website because of it. Having said that, what’s up with only pushing 60 characters at a time on messages? I hate pressing “n” 17 times to get the full message. It may be a case of optimizing for the lowest common denominator…but why not allow us change or choose different options? I have both a treo and blackberry - i can handle more text!

6) Expand the mobile platform. At facebookcamp Toronto I asked the 400 or so assembled if anybody was developing an application specifically for mobile or ensuring their apps will work on mobile. Only one person raised their hand. You can start by allowing people to take media from their profiles (or groups) and allow them to download them to their mobile device as a wallpaper…or maybe ringtone for audio-related media. This is also a good revenue stream potentially for developers taking advantage of the new open APIs… 

I’ve just come across this link at one degree on five predictions for facebook. Check it out…and feel free to add your own wish list here!