With more than 900 million users, the social network giant Facebook has constantly been criticized about its revenue generation model. However, with the latest reports of Facebook launching a ‘want’ button by web developer Tom Waddington, things can turn around in many ways for the company. With the share price down from an initial $38 to $28, all investors are eyeing Facebook to diversify their operations. The ‘want’ button that is being speculated to be introduced will allow Facebook to amass data and learn more about the kinds of products consumers are wanting to purchase and share with their friends. Many have questioned the groundbreaking effect of this ‘want’ button considering its predecessor, the ‘like’ button, which also aimed to streamline consumer preferences. Nonetheless, in the world of Facebook liking a product could indicate that the users already have purchased the item or that they are interested in getting it. A want button however, takes one step ahead to help understand people and can prove to be an effective market evaluation tool that would allow Facebook to show advertisers what its users actually intend to purchase. Another advantage would be that a want button plugin would make it easy for e-commerce and other sites to implement this type of Facebook functionality without having to build their own apps. Wanting on Facebook can very closely translate to social buying, which can help signal the market about what you and your friends want. However, this approach maybe limited since there is no assurance that the perceived desire for a product will essentially translate into a likely purchase. Nevertheless, the idea of being able to custom select wish list items and share them with friends is something Pinterest, Google Adwords and sites like Fancy are clearly doing well in the world of digital marketing, and it makes perfect sense for Facebook to offer a competing option.
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