(I am not talking about myself in the following post…I am perfectly happy)

About a week ago a few people I know decided they didn’t want to see each other anymore.  As news started to leak out, there was a public reaction.  Some were shocked, some weren’t, and some simply didn’t believe it.

Then I heard this:

“They broke up? You mean like ‘Facebook relationship status’ broke-up?”

For those of you who don’t know what I am talking about, when you sign up for Facebook you basically tell it all about yourself: your job, education, who you know, and who you are currently ‘with’.

Because it is a social networking site, the “relationship status” is easy to find on the front page.  Now, there are settings to remove that information from being public but finding privacy on Facebook is like finding silence at a thrash-metal concert.

Check this out, below is a list of countries and how many Facebook users list themselves as ’single’.  So, in Finland 26% of people are single, 35% in the U.S., but in Jordan 74% are.  This is from people reporting their status, meaning you are making the declaration….making it official…and I will argue, bankable in terms of marketing.

For one, I think you should note how that information is used and shared.  If you click on the graphic, it’ll take you to the AdChap Blog which has much more in a blog titled: Love in the Time of Facebook - An Analysis of Relationship Demographics on Facebook.

If you have decided privacy is important and did not report your relationship status, you’d be among the minority, according to the article:

On average, 40% of Facebook users do not report any relationship status at all.

Additionally you can be sure the rate of decay of relationships is also tracked.  In the past I have argued that I was OK about some of this data-mining on Facebook because the trade off is that it is free.  You have access to a searchable database of people, you can market whatever you want, and no bill shows up.  However I am beginning to think it is the most brilliant ruse ever: Facebook got people to essentially ‘work’ for them.  Polls and market research is expensive to buy, what if you could just get people to willingly offer up intimate details?  The sample size is global.  24/7.  You can sort the data by fields those people supply themselves.

There are some things that just are brilliant, and that was one of them.  Getting people to pay $3.50 for a cup of coffee and $1.50 for water was genius as well.  Frankly, I think people should be protesting it…the profit margin is through the roof.  Water is the one that gets me, more than 70% of the planet is covered in it.  It literally falls from the sky, and if you spell ‘naive’ backwards you get a very popular brand of bottled water.

I love marketing, it is absolutely fascinating to see what you can get people to believe and do.  If you do it well, people will even thank you for the service as they either pay you or work for you.  So, to my acquaintances who have changed their status back to ’single’…I hope you are OK with the transaction on more than just the surface level.  You have joined the throng, heck according to research, in Jordan you’d be among the 74% who also list themselves that way; but in Luxembourg people might take some pity.