Online social networking Website very often lack to define the context in which people socialize on their network. I was reading today about the new Garage Sale application that Buy.com is launching on Facebook. Where is the marketing brain behind this adventurous initiative?
Let's recap: Facebook was developed for students to share files about their field of study. Not long ago, it opened access to everybody, with clearly a student user-base. The relationships are student-to-student, most oftentimes it is a way to poke someone you've met on campus but couldn't initiate conversation. Or you need some help about a class, or whatever. Now someone stepped in and said: Let's turn them into sellers!
Neil Grover, the Chief Executive at Buy.com said "We're not trying to create a site people are going to come to. We're going to where all the traffic is." Go where the traffic is: Thats the dumbest statement I've ever heard. How about taking your hot-dog stand on the side of the freeway? There's traffic there, but it's just not the traffic you need.
Clearly, there's some deep lack of psycho-social analysis in today's startup craze. In real life, if you go to a place to meet friends, and one of them brings his pair of skis, a toaster and his old Macbook, just in case one of his friend is down to buy it for a few bucks, you'll probably find this inappropriate.
Stores have been there for centuries, and you know why? Because a store is a contextualized space dedicated to pay for goods/services. You'll always make a best sale in a store than directly to a friend. With a friend, you don't try to make the price go as high as possible, it's not nice. But it is a common behavior in a store.
My point is: Don't sell objects on a space dedicated to make friends. Separate friend relationships from sales relationships. The best way to actually show your friends that you are selling something is to post your sale on Ebay, and then post a widget on your social networking Website that shows your circle of friends you're selling something on Ebay.
People are talking about the Facebook fatigue. Of course they are, Facebook lacks market positioning and doesn't rely enough on its culture of origins (students), which probably is its strongest selling asset. In a 2004 interview, Mark Zuckerberg explains that:
"That’s why I think the website has been such a success. We don’t view the site as an online community — we bill it as a directory that is reinforcing a physical community. What exists on the site is a mirror image of what exists in real life."
Friends are the target of your garage sales in real life? heeeeaa, no.
