Telcos may look at Facebook (and MySpace and Beebo and Twitter, etc) as interesting, faddish anomolies, or at most, something to copy and steal from (particularly in the mobile realm).
But as the social networking site continues to evolve, it is looking more and more like a communications hub. And that should put it directly on the Tier 1 carrier radar.
In the latest development, according to blog FaceReviews.com, the new Facebook instant messaging application is now live on the site. Built by Facebook (rather than it’s growing community of Facebook developers) , the IM application could keep its users on-site even more than they already are by adding a real-time communications element to the environment.
Not to be outdone, VoIP providers are flocking to Facebook as well with applications that let people do “click-to-call” meetups within the site or even conduct Skype-style peer-to-peer PC-and-headphone based calling.
For instance, VoIP pioneer Jeff Pulver, has begun positioning his long-incubated Free World Dialup project as a social media play, starting with a Facebook voice mail application. Another company, BabyTel, is rolling an Facebook-integrated VoIP application this week. Also on Facebook (live or in development): VoIP and click-to call apps from Jajah, Jangl, YackPack and Truphone, plus a nifty conference call app from Iotum. And that’s just the tip of the “social VoIP” iceberg. As a telco-competitive play, Facebook’s playback (or that of any other social network) is becoming crystal clear.
- Users create their home page/profile page on the site, bringing in everything that is (virtually) important to them, including:
- Users create their home page/profile page on the site, bringing in everything that is (virtually) important to them, including:
- All their friends and colleagues, who:
- Create a web (or social graph) of connections, comments, cross-posts and other inter-links
- As the social graph deepens, social network communities begin to rely more and more on this new environment as the (powerful yet convenient) hub for ALL its communications, starting with:
- Cross-linked comment posts, “wall” news feeds, etc., ultimately moving on to:
- Online-centric communications extensions like instant messaging or newer modes like Twitter and then taking that mobile with:
- Built in SMS cross-posting and mobile phone site-posting before ultimately adding:
- Voice-based communications including on-site voice mailboxes, voice “blast” capabilities, conferencing or voice-based group chat applications and ultimately voice calling in its all its glorious forms but largely VoIP-based and peer-to-peer with PSTN (public switched telphone network) terminations where and when they are needed.
That vision posits Facebook or other sites as a be-all-end-all communications applications hub — and chillingly relegates telcos as (their biggest fear) dumb pipes at the outer-end of the communications value chain.
Does Facebook have your attention yet?
