The other day I overheard a group of Non-Internet savvy ladies discussing how one of them was going to open a pastry shop.

It caught my attention when one of the ladies said: "To promote your business, you don't need a Website anymore, all you need is a FaceBook..."

This got me thinking about the social network phenomenon and how we as hosters should deal with it.

Obviously I don't think this is the end of websites, but some brainstorming should be done on how we should tackle this phenomenon and what changes should be in order in our business strategy.

Any opinions on this issue will be very much appreciated.

Regards,

I ponder about the subject from time to time as well and my opinion is the following: for as long as FB remains to be a closed system and for as long as it will be limiting from a technical perspective, a business will always need their own website. Even regardless of FB openness policy, there are just so many things you can't do with FB that you can with a website. Not to mention sensitive business data that you might be sharing with FB. I will personally never trust a social network site with anything serious.

People thought the same of Google "taking over the web" and GoDaddy going into the hosting business. However, nothing has changed.

Yes, Facebook is a great way to stay connected or reach out to a potential clients, but it does not at all substitute your own website, your own professional representation. The cost of having your own website nowadays is so small that often it makes no sense not to have it.

Well, Facebook certainly has a stranglehold on Social Networking right now, and this lady was right that you could succeed online with just a Facebook account. Can you sell products like pastries off your Facebook page?

I don't think that facebook will exactly overrun websites, you still can not accept orders via facebook nor can you fully customize your page

I'm not much of a Facebook aficionado but do they not place potentially competitive ads on your facebook page?
How would facebook be any better than any other free hosting service that does ad placement?

No, but you can tell your friends and then your friends' friends and so on, to go to the pastry shop to buy.

Using Facebook to promote your website is a good idea, but using it solely as an online presence? Nope.

Would you buy from a company that was only on Facebook with some PayPal links to buy their product? I know I wouldn't. The first thing I would think is "How serious are they?" and "Can't they afford a website?".

To end the websites? No I do not think so. Social networks are just means of communication.

I think social networking pages are a good thing to get your name out their but they are limited. If your going to have a company you need a real website also, even if a company advertises their Facebook page their is always a link to their website. Facebook has taken over but it will soon fall and be replaced by another site that has taken things to the next level.. its just the way things are. Everyone is looking for the next big thing.

Good point there Michael. In fact, it's worse, because once your account is gone, it's web address is gone forever. You have no real control over that. With free hosting, you can often use your own domain name.

That may be true, or it may not. Google came after Yahoo, and after Altavista, etc. yet it managed to lead search for quite a few years now. Who's to say that Facebook isn't for social networks what Google has been for the search engines? You just never really know.

I wonder if Facebook will change how advertising is done. We haven't been using Facebook for targeted advertising but we're planning on testing it out.

Facebook:
Promotion? Yes.
Website replacement? 100% no.

Hi,

Obviously it is a very good idea to promote any business but a website is required for better customer.

I don't think it's going to take over the web since the web has billions of pages. It's going to have an impact but not take the web over.

the mostly fake new, still up

well, facebook is a good platform for business. It's ad's are good too for instant live traffic.