Female1: Let’s get ourselves connected.
Female: Got to get yourself connected.
Mike: We’ve got Matthew Ingram with the latest in tech trends from the Globe and Mail, thanks for joining us Matthew.
Matthew: Thanks for having me Mike.
Mike: wanna talk about Facebook, obviously huge social phenomenon ,they literally have tens of millions of users now, but, you know, typically when I think of Facebook, I think kind of the younger hip crowd, but now I understand there’s a partnership going on with the Wall Street Journal, who’s the readers I typically wouldn’t think would be Facebook users.
Matthew: Yeah, and I think I obviously thought the same thing. When you think of those two things they don’t seem to naturally go together and I guess that says a couple of things to me. One is the Wall Street Journal is obviously thinking, you know, their, they need to expand perhaps their readership, they wanna reach out to younger readers, you know, their readership is aging, perhaps even dying, you know, they need to reach sort of new readers, younger readers, expand their market and obviously, you know, Rupert Murdoch is probably interested in doing that. So it’s a good move for them even though it seems a little odd on the face of it, it probably didn’t cost them anything, the part I’m wondering about is what someone who is, say, using Facebook all the time is gonna think of its association with the Wall Street Journal. The Wall Street Journal might be trying to sort of appear more hip but it kinda makes Facebook look like, you know, maybe they’re not that hip coz they need to cozy up to the Wall Street Journal. I think they’re hoping, they’ll get a little something out of it, maybe they will, maybe they won't. although it is interesting to me that Facebook has been broadening its reach in a sense that it’s not just, obviously, for university students anymore, there a lot more people I think who are actively kind of doing things that are related to business through Facebook. Whether it’s companies or individuals who are, you know, hooking up with contacts that then lead to work, free lancers for example, those kinds of things are broadening the market for Facebook as well.
Mike: Well, it’s interesting from what I understand, there’s basically a widge that you would install on to your Facebook page that would show you what Wall Street articles, or Wall Street Journal articles that your friends or yourself are reading and compare that. I’m just wondering with all, you know, this additions all the time, is Facebook almost becoming kind of bloated?
Matthew: Well, I think you could definitely say that they’re expanding in all directions, and so, you know, whenever you do do that, there’s the opportunity for you to take your eye off the ball as, you know, venture capitalist types like to say, and maybe get me on what your sort of core market. I think Facebook, in a lot of ways is trying to figure out what they’re core market is and it used to be university students, but what is it now, and how, obviously they’re trying to, you know, produce revenues and create a viable business. Microsoft invested a bunch of money and valued the company at 15 billion, they have to find a way of justifying that kind of valuation and producing that kind of, you know, revenue that will justify that numbers, so, they’re looking for any opportunity, I’m sure, to either pull in people to look at things or find ways of marketing to them and obviously the Wall Street Journal’s thinking about the same thing.
Mike: Well, I think I’ll add that Wall Street Journal widget next to my hot or not widget in my Facebook page.
Matthew: Sure. Why not.
Mike: I wanna thank you for your time Matthew.
Matthew: Okay thanks Mike.
Mike: That’s Matthew Ingram from the Globe and Mail, you can read more of his articles and blogs at globaltechnology.com.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services