In the last few weeks, I've delved headfirst into the world of Facebook-as-marketing-tool. Last fall, Facebook introduced "Facebook Pages" which has essentially become a venue for everything that's not a person to have a presence on Facebook. Products, TV shows, political candidates, etc.

I'm really glad that Myspace is on the downswing and Facebook is on its way up. As far as functionality and usability goes, Facebook spanks Myspace's animated-gif-riddled butt. I'm thrilled that "social networking" has grown up in the last few years, but I still think we have a way to go.

So here's my Facebook Book Report. I hope it's better than the book report I did for "A Separate Peace" in eighth grade.

The general rule on creating a 'corporate presence' for a client on Myspace is this: hack hack hack hack. CSS hacks, JavaScript hacks, Flash hacks, anything you can throw at Myspace to make it bend to your will. To be honest, it feels a little bit dirty. It reminds me of those message boards I used to post to back in 2000-2002 that didn't protect against CSS/JS hacking. Back then if you wanted to hijack a thread and make it a tiled goatse.jpg, well then go right ahead. Yet somehow in 2008, I can insert one single line of CSS into a Myspace page and break the entire profile.

Facebook is the polar opposite of Myspace in this respect. Every chunk of code that you send through Facebook is filtered and modified to ensure that you do not do anything outside of what Facebook wants you to do. I can respect this, especially after seeing incredibly horrid examples of "custom layouts" on Myspace. Facebook's approach seems to be this: Here are some apps, here are some boxes, just go and do your best with that.

There are a few bits that irritate me even though I can completely understand their motivation. First and foremost, you can add Flash content, but absolutely NO Flash content is displayed until the user chooses to display it. This was obviously put in place because auto-playing sounds and animation can be HORRIBLY abused (see my earlier comments about Myspace).

Second, if you start a page as a company, the 'Reviews' application will automatically be added to your page and THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT. This move seems a bit more Draconian. No company wants to have a presence on the web where people can openly bash their product or service. I think this can be a real deal-breaker when a company is looking at what social networks to attack. There are ways around this, like signing up as a brand or product rather than a business, but it's still a stumbling block.

As with everything on the internet, there's a certain hint of "fad" to things like this. Exhibit A: Second Life. If I had a nickel for every article I read on the incredible value of creating a brand-presence on Second Life then I might have enough cash to make up for all the money companies wasted on creating "virtual brand-worlds."

Since I fancy myself a critical thinker, I have to ask what the real value of Facebook Pages is. People are still warming up to Pages and the novelty factor is still really high. When people start to get tons of notes and updates from companies that they're a 'fan' of, will the novelty quickly wear off? As it stands right now, when you become a fan of a company on Facebook, you're essentially saying, "Hi Company. Feel free to advertise to me directly now that I have expressed interest in your brand. By the way, here's all my demographic and psychographic information." If companies don't utilize this channel intelligently, I can see Pages eating itself alive within a year. (May I remind you of the Beacon debacle.)

Welp, the Colbert Report is starting and I've already babbled on too long. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, so please, comment to your heart's content.