My Worth to Facebook

The viral loop application on Facebook is an interesting one: it calculates your worth to the social networking website Facebook and your influence over your friends on it, as well as how valuable your social network is. I predicted before calculating my worth to Facebook that it would be fairly low: although an avid Facebook user, I am more of a browser than a contributor to its world. So when I discovered my loop value was $120, I wasn't too surprised. Most of my friends on Facebook are of the same general age and influence as myself: mostly students, young and just starting out. It was interesting to note that the viral loop application doesn't just take into account how influential you are as a person; it's also about who you know. Of the odd 400 people on my Facebook, I'm only generating 120 dollars. There are a few aspects of my social network that could account for this. One is that most of my acquaintances (because lets be serious, I hardly know everyone on Facebook intimately) are from Southern Ontario. In terms of Facebook's overreaching numbers, it is a small demographic. It makes you wonder what kinds of elements a Facebook user needs to increase its value; a variety of friends or perhaps a larger quantity of friends. Another element to this algorithm they mention on the app is your activity levels. Without looking at any type of banner advertisements on Facebook, one can just look at their news feed. I have a friend on Facebook who consistently posts website links, youtube videos, comic strips to their wall, and almost always takes over my news feed. I wonder how much he is worth to Facebook compared to myself. Looking at my activity, I often will go days without making any sort of comments or postings or status updates even though I go on the website daily. But all this aside, Facebook can be seen as the ultimate in mouth to mouth advertisement, it’s constantly updating you on what everyone you know is doing, thinking, liking, not liking, and therefore buying. It’s the subtlest of sellers, and it does so through your friends instead of through a commercial.