Wise Startup Blog

Facebook, in its effort to continually update their service has released a version 2.0 of their iPhone app and now a revamped landing page.

Facebook’s original landing page and the new one, isn’t much to look at, and really isn’t that much different than the old version. So why the change?

A Thousand Words

Pictures really do speak a thousand words, as we saw from our recent coverage of the 4 most influential pictures of the 2008 election.

The switch here to the new homepage really is about tweaking the overall message for Facebook and a hint at their new strategy.

The old Facebook landing page focused on features, you can go on Facebook and look at pictures, meet friends, yadda yadda yadda.

Facebook has grown to the point where they no longer have to spell out the ‘features’. For every good site, you shouldn’t have to spell out your features, they should be immediately apparent when looking at the site, otherwise you’re doing something wrong.

I’m a big proponent of including little to no ‘help’ sections for users, because good UI design should little to no confusion for the user. And for those people who still are at a loss, when it comes to the great designed sites, stick to a typewriter.

China, Meet Facebook

The new Facebook landing page focuses on branding Facebook as an International utility. With more than a billion people in China, and China already reaching the US-level of online users, it’s no wonder Facebook wants to tap into this market.

Ambitions for Facebook extend well beyond keeping fraternities connected in college, they want to replace your LinkedIN network (how they plan on doing this, I’m not sure yet), but it’s obvious by this new homepage that the goal is to go global, fast.

You Need To Collect This From Your Users!

For naive web-entrepreneurs, often the easiest pieces can be missed. Facebook, from day one, has had this covered. They ask you when you were born, as it made sense to determine what college year you were in, how old you are, etc.

For a lot of sites that don’t focus solely on social activity, knowing someone’s age isn’t that important, but it’s imperative if you plan to build an advertising business around your site.

Advertisers are looking to reach specific demographics when they advertise. Young, high-spending females or young males age 18-35, regardless of the demographics you have on your site, the most important factor is actually knowing who your users are.

Knowing your demographics enables you to better target advertising and then reap the rewards of higher-paying CPM dollars, meaning more money in your pocket.

So for your next site, or for your current site, be sure to include this vital demographic signup information. If you don’t know how to use the information yet, just store it in your database, you never know when you may need it in the future.

Let us know your tips you’ve learned from other sites on the web.