How Facebook Could Help Publishers and Booksellers

Yesterday Facebook launched “Facebook Connect,” a sign-on system that allows members to use Facebook functions from inside a regular webpage–a development that could help booksellers target readers in this dismal book-buying environment.

Shiv Singh from Razorfish produced a slideshow brainstorming how retailers can use Facebook’s newest feature to work more closely with customers. As “Portable Social Graphs: Imagining their Potential” explains, with Facebook Connect enabled on a bookseller’s website, the user can automatically find reviews written by friends, chat with friends, and share books directly with friends without ever leaving the bookseller site. It has tremendous implications–both as a privacy headache and a customized book-buying experience.

Here’s an excerpt from the slideshow: “Product suggestions through profile scraping. [The bookseller] can suggest products to you using your Facebook profile data. This data can include: brands you are a fan of, age, gender, location, stated interests and more.” (Via Lost Remote.)

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