It looks like Facebook is getting ready to add a new button to let people signal not just what they “like,” but what they “want.”
Software developer Tom Waddington flagged the possibility on his blog on June 27, but we all just got around to noticing it yesterday and today. The button is disabled right now, and Facebook isn’t saying anything about it, but Waddington thinks it could become the basis for a sort of universal wishlist that developers and sites could get access to.
This could prove to be a pretty big deal for a company whose challenge before and after its initial public offering has been persuading marketers–and investors–that its advertising works. Although many examples have surfaced that seem to indicate the value of Facebook ads, one central doubt remains, especially vs. Google, the king of online advertising: Can Facebook ads ever provide an indication of purchase intent that’s anything close to that of search ads?
A “want” button would add to the wealth of data about Facebook users’ interests, demographics, location and, yes, likes. Because it’s an indication of something people clearly desire, it gets a lot closer to the surpassing value of Google’s AdWords system, widely acknowledged by marketers as one of the most concrete indications of intent to buy, and buy soon.
Now, the addition of a single verb isn’t going to radically change the dynamics of the online advertising business overnight–assuming Facebook does indeed activate a “want” button. Facebook itself believes that while the direct-response advertisers most interested in such intent data account for a significant portion of its ad revenues currently, its real appeal to marketers is more brand-building than buy-it-now.
What’s more, simply because someone clicks on a “want” button, it doesn’t necessarily mean she or he wants to buy that product, let alone now or even soon. It’s still unlikely to match the intent inherent in a search query for “best Roomba prices.”
Not least, despite concerns about Google’s data collection, search is still a fairly private activity: Your searches aren’t broadcast to the general public, let alone friends. When you “want” something, the whole point is to make it public, and for many products, you’re simply not going to do that. As startup CEO B.N. Kausik tweeted in response to this post: “Issue remains that 60% of GDP is health/auto/finance; Users won’t “want” such items on $FB out of privacy concerns.”
Still, such a signal could help Facebook provide a very valuable layer of data about commercial intent. And that could go a long way to bolstering Facebook’s plan to create a new advertising powerhouse.
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