Mark Zuckerberg is an apostle of the sharing

Like many youth of his generation, Mark Zuckerberg rarely separates from his pull to hood. At Harvard University, in the early 2000s, the witnesses of the time described the introvert, little socially integrated refugee in his room to strumming on his computer. However, within five years, the shy student became the orchestrator of the last revolution of the Internet, that of social networks.

Facebook, simple directory University (at the beginning, it was primarily to elect the most beautiful girl on campus) has become the most formidable agora of all time. Mark had no friends, he now has almost half a billion. And contrary to what one thinks, Facebook is also a large and real business: 1,200 people and probably well over a billion dollars in sales this year. If it was introduced on the stock market, which is not excluded, or if it was bought by a competitor, it would sell more than 10 billion dollars. Not bad for a website launched without means in 2004!

But what makes the success of Facebook in also trace the limits. Periodically, since 2007, the firm draws controversy about respect for private life. It is not the only, Google faces the same charge. But the network concentrated attacks because it affects fundamental values, identity, freedom, trust, which no one knows how combine, apprehend them in cyberspace built before our eyes.

The founders of Google claim "organizing all the information of the world", while also modestly, that Facebook wants to build "a more open and connected world." Mark Zuckerberg is an apostle of the sharing. For him, the world will be better if the maximum of people share the lot of. But for this they must get to know, because sharing can flourish in the trust and confidence in the identity. It is paradoxically to escape anonymity and the opening of the Web that are born social networks. So instead in a logic of closure.

They are all based on the same principle of identification and co-optation. Once registered, I tells a profile with information about my studies, my work, my leisure, my tastes. I can interact with people that I have chosen or accepted, and which are "friends". Each is supposed to be set fairly precisely which can access its own information. The problem is that Facebook regularly change the rules. Including with regard to the communication of personal data to third parties, mostly merchant sites. A complaint was also filed earlier this year to the Federal Trade Commission about the lack of clarity of the communication policy of Facebook data.

It must be said that it is here in the heart of the economic model of Facebook, and therefore its future development. The first years, site wondered how profitable this mass of members, do away with intrusive advertisements. He then proposed small discrete inserts associated with certain keywords, sold at auction and charged to the click. As Google, it can target based on the information available to it. Thus, a wedding photographer may choose to pass an advertisement only visible by women aged 18 to 35 who live in the region and who were said to be engaged.

The only problem is that so far, the effectiveness of advertising is lower than Google, where the same photographer will be able to buy the key words photo and marriage. According to the Comscore study society, revenue per unique visitor is six times higher in Google than Facebook.

This is why that site attempts to enrich its offer to advertisers. In 2007, it had caused an uproar with a new application which warned all friends of a member as soon as he had made a purchase on the Web, with of course a link to the store in question. Then in 2008, the firm was passed to the superior speed with the introduction of a form of passport Facebook which allowed to identify third-party sites. The dream of Mark Zuckerberg is the Facebook profile to become the Internet identity card, recognized by most of the sites. Finally last month, the social network has released his last bomb, simple appearance. A small logo "I like" with the thumb up, that any site who wishes can free place on its homepage, but on each of the information it contains also. Thus, if you read this article on the website of the "voices", and by extraordinary, you enthusiasm, you can click on the small thumb. Then this paper will be integrated in the list of your favourite articles and all your friends will be able to view it.

For the user, it is a way to share his discoveries, but for Facebook, it is a tool of considerable power, which could swallow the Google ads to the rank of station advertisements. The ability to cross the profile of the members with their choice on the day the day brings considerable opportunities in terms of marketing analysis. A client site may know precisely the profile of the user who appreciated its product and therefore not only target advertising on a particular population, but also reorganize its site, see modify its strategy based on these data. A so powerful that it is still probably in advance from user companies marketing competence. For the moment these tools relate only to Facebook, but it will quickly find a way to monetize the great database of behavioral is building and which has no equivalent in the world. His fortune seems assured.

Except that it is entirely based on two mandatory conditions: that its appetite for data did not flee members to other heavens, and that the very concept of social network is obsoletes not as quickly it is imposed. After all, Myspace was dominant in the early 2000s and was nailed in place within two years by the Facebook rocket. And new entrants such as Twitter, with its 75 million members, could also change gives.

It is for this that Mark Zuckerberg has recently published a word of apology in the "Washington Post" and was again amended and simplified its privacy policy. For the moment, members are somewhat concerned by calls for boycott (Monday took place the "Quit Facebook Day") and other surveys on the "right to oblivion" on the Internet. Moreover, 70 are now nonamericans. But a too sustained media campaign can have adverse effects in the long term on the reputation of the network, even if it is protected by its internationalization and its size.

When the risk of disappearance of social networks, it is low. MSN to Facebook via Skyblog and Myspace, the younger generations are accustomed to community communication platforms. They organize the life on the Internet as surely as the Google search. It is however possible that Facebook is its limit in the incessant mixture privacy public life, that now characterizes. Mark Zuckerberg will have to make, it does not régentera the world, but just a small part. The hooded teenager who dreams of making peace in the world with its 500 million friends should reflect this flux definition Milan Kundera of friendship: "provide one mirror in which one can contemplate his image in the past, without the Lord blah - blah of memories between friends, is would be cleared long.."