[olefoo]

Facebook has the biggest and most metadata rich direct marketing list ever created?

Facebook has not even begun to do the things they could with the knowledge they collect every day. In theory you should be able to go to one of Facebook's ad sales pages and order an ad that will be shown exactly three times to every left-handed piano player in Ohio. That you can't do that in the next ten minutes means that Facebook is leaving money on the table. They don't need to compete with Google, they need to compete with Experian and Transunion, or they need to come up with a way to provide a compelling "We manage your online data for you." offering that a majority of their users would pay for.

Facebook is, right now in a fairly enviable position; there are many things that they could potentially become, they are not hamstrung by the need to keep a cash cow fed and they have enough resources to try multiple experiments at scale.

I wouldn't count them out as a driving force on the web just yet.

[shock-value]

I think you overstate the amount of useful data Facebook has on people. Just to take your example: Facebook may very well know which state I live in, but they definitely don't know whether I'm left handed, for example.

On the other hand, Google might very well know this, if, say, I have searched for left handed golf clubs. Amazon would also know this, if I have bought said clubs through them. Google and Amazon almost certainly also know which state I live in (hell Google might know exactly where I am at any given moment if I have an Android phone).

So really I don't think Facebook is in an enviable position at all compared to companies like Amazon and Google.

"[...] they need to come up with a way to provide a compelling "We manage your online data for you." offering that a majority of their users would pay for"

What data? Dropbox and now Google back up all your files and documents, for FREE, now! How could they compete with this with a free service, let alone a paid one?

And from a privacy standpoint people trust Facebook far less than Google or Dropbox. There is an implicit assumption that anything shared with Facebook will some way or another be shared with one's Facebook friends. (People aren't ignorant of the way Facebook has tried to trick them into accepting more liberal privacy settings over the years.) Facebook would have to work very very hard to change this perception before a data storage service would ever take off.

[stewartbutler]

As an addendum to your points, I do not have a Facebook account, and since deleting mine I've not even wanted one. Google, Amazon, Dropbox, and a few other services are compelling enough that unless they make serious errors, I will continue using their product. Facebook just had to change their privacy policy before I was finally annoyed enough to give them the boot.

[sfall]

ok facebook may not know if your left handed, unless your in a left handed appreciation group, but think about all the information facebook does collect on you.

where you or others check in, likes, people you chat with, what you chat about, who tags you in posts and photos and who your with, not to mention all the tracking facebook does with other sites

[shock-value]

Well, it remains to be seen whether that data can actually generate revenue. I personally don't think it has much potential, at least not compared to the extremely specific data Google has on everyone, or the purchasing data that Amazon possesses.

Also, I just don't think people use Facebook the way you describe. Most people I know don't "check in" wherever they go, nor do they "like" different brands (except for ones that make them do so in order to be eligible for a contest or something sketchy like that--I've definitely seen that before). But people do search on Google for anything and everything, including purchasing decisions. And of course people do make real purchases on Amazon.

The widgets that Facebook litters over the web which it can use to track user's browsing habits may be the wild card here, but I'm still skeptical that this has that much value compared to Google's search data. Plus those widgets seem to be mostly limited to news sites anyway.

[willyt]

What can they sell me based on the fact that I just liked someones wedding photo / baby picture / witty comment? I like my friends businesses and other local peoples businesses on Facebook because I want them to do well. I've never gone on to Facebook to like a business because a transaction went smoothly. I think that's weird and think my friends would too when they see it on some feed.