Facebook Attempting to Tear Down Vine

So Facebook purchased Instagram with the plan to develop this feature of recording 15 second shorts that can be posted and shared to all..... No they didn't.... Did they?

In my opinion FB have suddenly woken up and seen the money go elsewhere, namely Vine. Cue late response from FB.

Vine, which Twitter launched in October of 2012 (not so long ago !! ) has 13 million users. More importantly the money is using Vine, reportedly 50,000 brands are using Vine to reach the audiences.

Copy Cat !

Last week Facebook rolled out support for hashtags, another feature pioneered on Twitter. Like video, hashtags have been a crucial element of Twitter's advertising business. It's a way to focus attention around big events like the Superbowl and the Oscars. Hashtags organize the real-time conversation and create an anchor for people to connect to trending topics and campaigns. And that's what marketers want, to be part of the big discussions.


Compare this to Facebook's approach to advertising, which has been all about targeting based on your personal data (Shut up Slave ! we own you now, approach adopted by FB) and social connections. The company made a big pitch to advertisers that it would create a new type of marketing where the words and photos shared by its users would become native ad units. The one most tied to Facebook's DNA was "Sponsored Stories".

As it turns out, people hated this. Facebook's ad model converts you into an unwitting pitchman for a product you may or may not love.

Stop SPAMMING me .....

Sometimes this means you spam your friends and family over and over with the same post, which has been purchased and promoted to the top of their news feed. Other people become unwilling mascots for large quantities of sexual lubricant they never purchased or intended to promote.

The Good News

Facebook seems to have recognized the problem. Just two weeks ago, it eliminated more than half its advertising products. Sponsored stories got the axe. The idea behind them is still being integrated into all of Facebook's marketing efforts, but it's clear the company is turning towards a more conventional approach.

Video could be a game-changer for Facebook. Advertisers are willing to pay much higher prices to show consumers a short clip than they would for a display ad, no matter how tricked out it is with social context. When you combine video with real-time conversation and massive audiences, you get a form of broadcast advertising.The biggest slice of the traditional advertising pie that companies like Facebook and Twitter can take from is the $80 billion annual TV spend.

I told you already !

Twitter has already begun to form deep partnerships with big players in television like ESPN, A&E, and Bloomberg See my recent post TV and Twitter,

Hashtags are a becoming a major part of promoting live events. At a recent event in New York it showed off the integration of sports highlights and Vine.

All aboard ....

The recent announcements from Facebook show it recognizes that leveraging personal and social data often makes for uncomfortable advertising. With the addition of hashtags and video, Facebook is gearing up to take on Twitter in the big battle for real-time, broadcast style advertising dollars instead. Brands are already jumping on board.