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Nine By Blue founder Vanessa Fox is author of the critically acclaimed Marketing in the Age of Google: Your Online Strategy IS Your Business, which has been called the “search marketing bible” by technology leaders. Be sure to pick up your copy today.
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July 22, 2008
As I was logging into Facebook to check out the redesign, I noticed this little checkbox to “set Facebook as your home page”.
I don’t recall seeing that before. I am impressed that it’s not selected by default.
Once they get all those default home pages, they just need to expand their partnership with Microsoft to offer Live Search as part of the Facebook home page experience. Does Microsoft need Yahoo’s users if they can grab Facebook’s instead? How many people do you think will make the default home page switch?
I’ve considered it, but I’m hardly a good example of “has a healthy relationship with Facebook.”
but Google is so much more usefull :-0
I think this is the first step towards a more aggressive microsoft push through FB. What they need to do is make the default page a lot cleaner and neater (more like google!!!) and add genuinely useful things like your phone book and a big fat search box. Once they’ve done that – people might start using it.
I wonder if, to help encourage people to set it as the homepage, they should use google search to start with?! The old bait and switch anyone?
“I am impressed that it’s not selected by default.”
Probably a simple oversight. I’m sure the Facebook guys will “fix” that soon.
Facebook is getting awfully pushy.
I wonder if they’re testing this. I’m not seeing that option on my login page.
I haven’t seen it either so they might be testing it. I think FB has a chance as a homepage. Not mine, but it has become central to many people’s online activity.
If I were still addicted, I’d do it. And I hope many people do, and MSN Live search gets on it. Google is way too dominant, imho, and it’s unhealthy.
should be great to integre facebook and Google.
I am curious about your comments re being impressed that its not set to yes as a default ? If you were the decision maker there wouldn’t you have it turned on ?
Maybe. I would look at overall user experience. It’s a very shallow, short-term strategy to just get as many users as possible to switch to the default. Your actual long term goal should be to build deep engagement with users so they want to come back and use your product again and again.
If checking the box to make the site the default home page causes users to have a good experience and engage more often more positively, then go for it. If it causes users to feel confused and irritated and every time they opened their browsers they wonder where this page came from and navigate away as quickly as possible, then it’s a bad idea.
Why would they need facebook users when they can release a windows or IE update and have all users switched to another homepage? I think that if it was selected by default lots of people would use it. I also think that administrators would be more likely to add facebook to their blacklist.