Yesterday Mark Zuckerberg made an announcement that was touted as being a Social Media game changer.

At first, the announcement of Facebook Timelines and OpenGraph Apps looked more like a design and usability change.

In reality what sits behind those changes is valuable consumer data.

Facebook may not be concerned with revenue as a priority but they certainly have it figured into their plans.

Share & Share Alike

If they can encourage more people to share more information, businesses can then market to those individuals more accurately, leading to increased ROI. Business will see Facebook as a valuable revenue stream.

Whether consumers take the recent changes remains to be seen. With changes made earlier this month it has been suggested that Google+ is seeing growth as those frustrated with Facebook move platforms.

Integrated Applications

Application partnerships that were so publicly displayed yesterday may yet hold the key to success. If Facebook functionality can stay ahead of the competition, and it can be become the hub for your day to day activity and entertainment, Facebook is set to be a real winner. Not only will it be a repository for user data for use in marketing, it will also benefit from the likely licensing fees from partners and application developers using the platform.

For You as a Business?

Little has changed, and I would advise to continue as normal with Facebook activity. The only exception would be if you are looking into application development for the platform; in this case you may want to get in early. OpenGraph applications are likely to be popular, and developers in high demand.

In coming months as the Timeline rolls out and new applications are developed we wait to see if users dig deep and take the new functionality on board, or rebel against the machine.

Your view?