With the Twitter IPO it is worth remembering that even Twitter is just a web page, but I think this notion applies even more to Facebook, as Twitter has pretty much morphed into a utility.
I remember working on the redesign of a law firm’s social media strategy, and particularly on their Facebook page, when brand pages morphed from the tab-prominent old-school design, to the timelime view. This jarring transformation, in my view, killed somewhat the push to have brands totally give up on their own independent web pages to use Facebook exclusively for their online presence.
Tabs get short shrift nowadays in Facebook, but irrespective of this and some of my other UI and even ethical objections to Facebook, it of course remains wildy popular.
For those coming up now they never lived in a world without Facebook. And with subsidized usage perhaps through initiatives like the Zuckerberg-pushed Internet.org, and net neutrality issues poised to take a step backwards, independent websites, outside content-networks like Facebook and Tumblr, may again suffer.
It is worth remembering, that even Twitter, but especially Facebook, is just a web page, and not to surrender too much of whatever it is you have, your creativity, your business, your organization, to for-profit companies as whether they are altruistic or nefarious, they inevitably have their own agenda and will move forward sometimes at breakneck speed, as Facebook did when they switched up brand pages to the timeline view, so you risk being roadkill on the information highway, yet again.
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