Just recently, Facebook added real time search and @tagging to its rich collection of features, followed by the launch of Facebook Lite.
On the other side, Twitter is not just watching. It has announced several upcoming upgrades: Project Retweet, Geolocation Tagging and Statistic Tools for Business.
If you are keeping up with Facebook’s evolution, you would notice its keen adoption of features from other social media sites. With that, Facebook has nothing to be ashamed of (not that they are). In fact, Facebook is the leader of social media partly because of its willingness to embrace ideas that are not of its own.
So what’s next, Facebook? Could it be one or more of the 5 possible features that we thought of?
1. Trending Topics
Facebook has always been eyeing on Twitter’s features. With @Tagging in place, trending topics might well be next on the list. It is the easiest way to find popular news and the most talked about items. With the input of 250 million users, Facebook’s trending topics could be far more accurate than Twitter’s.
2. “Retweet”
Currently, Facebook allows you to share what your friends have posted but it doesn’t acknowledge them. An integration with its new @tagging could work. Here’s a photoshopped mock up: Notice the inclusion of “via PennOlsonPage” and “Share Count”.
The “repost” count is definitely working for Yahoo Meme right now.
3. Photo-Editing
Besides Flickr, Facebook is the next largest site for photo-sharing. Every day, thousands or even millions of photos are uploaded with friends being tagged. To increase involvement of users, a photo editing application might prove to be useful. The more time you spend on Facebook, the more revenue Facebook will get.
4. Face-Bookmarking
With so many links being shared on Facebook, there is a need for some organization. Providing users with the tool could make bookmarking within Facebook an easy feat.
A “Facebook Bar” (like the ones for Digg and StumbleUpon) could help people with common interests connect through bookmarking activities. It would also broaden Facebook’s scope of Internet activities with little intervention by the Facebook team.
Is acquiring Digg an option worth considering?
5. Embeddable Facebook Page
The highly anticipated Google Wave allows a Wave to be embedded onto a website. Besides being cool, it allows businesses to reply to customer queries via a wave. Likewise, the same could be done for a Facebook business Page. Check out this video to get the gist of it. (from 1:50 onwards).
Alright, imagine that a customer, John, is impressed by the customer service provided by a company via Facebook. If he is on the company website, he need not log on to Facebook to ask a question. He simply types his comment through the embedded Facebook page. After which, the customer service personnel would respond to him via Facebook. If John likes the service, he would join as a fan, which is good news for the company.
The benefit? Companies can streamline their customer service, increase efficiency and stay connected with its visitors.
Summary
This is just my 2 cents worth. Facebook definitely has its own plan and we can only speculate what’s going to happen. Facebook’s future looks bright and there is definitely more to expect out of this social networking giant.
Perhaps the benefits of Google Wave can offer more to the table?
