A Thank You Note to Facebook

Facebook, which has often been compared to "Big Brother" from George Orwell's 1984, is making some solid steps towards its literary counterpart with the introduction of Facebook Home. Those who choose to use the app will be able to keep all their Facebook activity and messaging conversations open  as they switch between functions on their mobile phones. Thanks goodness we will finally be able to eradicate that awful separation anxiety we always feel when logging off of the social media platform!

Behind its mission to ease communication and sociability between its users, Facebook hopes to maintain and further extend its title as the richest hub for Big Data. If Facebook Home takes off and Apple somehow agrees to allow the app on iphones, its integration of messaging into every other cellular function will eventually eliminate the need for SMS texting completely. Moving all our conversations to the web comes with a price: our privacy, which we have already slowly given up over the past several years with the advent of social media. This integration of mobile conversations with Facebook means that marketers will finally be able to access our texts, the single digital source of information deemed untouchable.

Despite my sarcasm, I really do appreciate Facebook's continual journey towards complete integration. Not only does it allow for its users to achieve greater productivity, but it inadvertently empowers the consumer to contribute to the increasingly consumer-driven marketplace. When marketers know what each consumer spends their time doing and talking about, they know what products will best enhance our individual lives. The market is now about serving rather than selling, and that, my fellow consumers and advertising professionals, is a beautiful thing.