Business

Forbes recently released a new Stocks application that allows you to add stocks that you are watching to your profile. All in all it is practically useless. Features include the ability to see which of your friends are tracking the same stocks and links to Forbes. If you want to get news, quotes, or earnings information for any stock you add then you will have to follow a link to Forbes. Honestly, it’s not a very clever way of driving traffic to their site, but apparently 7,000 users found the application intriguing enough to add it to their profile. I’m still waiting on an application that displays a ticker on your profile before I place my stock wish list on the site. If you are interested in using the Forbes Stocks application then go check out the application page.

One of the partnerships announced at Facebook’s news conference last week was a partnership with Amazon. Currently users can make a list of their favorite books and music. Imagine what will happen when users will not only see their friends that like the same music but will also be able to view the current price on their favorite products. This will be the first major introduction of commerce into social networking. Strong relationships have always been a source of referral sales, and now much of that can take place online. Soon enough we will see add-ons that allow you to:

• Make custom wardrobes (e.g. “My Closet”) with links directly to a purchase page
• Make recommendations on books
• Recommend songs
• General wish lists with links to products
• More!

This is truly a revolution in online marketing. I am willing to bet that as a result of this integration of e-commerce and social networking, Facebook will account for a major percentage of all online transactions by the end of next year. Imagine when they decide to take a cut of all sales. They are looking at some serious revenue potential. This is only the forefront.