Sooner or later it was bound to happen, but Facebook has become the new website. Companies, no matter how large or small, are creating a presence on Facebook using a combination of Facebook Fan Pages, Groups and Facebook Applications, because that's where their customers are at! To be or not to be on Facebook is no longer the question! Rather, its how fast!

Build it Because They Are Here!
Having built Facebook applications and custom fan pages for some time, I am surprise as to how ubiquitous Facebook has become as part of a companies marketing mix. Almost every brand and marketing campaign has a fan page and application to suit (Target, McDonald's, CNN, i.e.). In fact, after fan pages was first rolled out, more than 100,000 companies created branded pages in the first 24 hours! Not only are there corporate pages, but companies are creating pages for individual brand and products (Pepsi Max, Diet Pepsi, Pepsi) as well as country-specific pages (Pepsi Sweden, Pepsi Latin America, i.e.) exist on Facebook.  Its a bit of a free for all (- beware the brand police)! For every "official" fan page page, there are dozens of unofficial one's created by actual customers and fans (many with more traffic than the 'real thing'), and not only are pages and apps not limited to brands and organizations, but movies, politicians (like Obama and every major politician and political party), musicians, and the like have all setup their new homes on Facebook!  (It seems that MySpace is fast becoming a "no man's land") Hopefully, by the time you read my blog post, you yourself already have your Facebook fan page. You know you are not getting any love if you don't have your own Facebook fan page!

Marketing Wonderland?
The days when "branded applications" and custom fan pages were relinquished to only largest of brands are over! Local and small businesses are now developing and deploying Facebook application! For a couple of hundred dollars they can now get a "shanty town" of an Facebook application (I guess you can call them a "Shanty app") from a freelancer or a Facebook app-mill. It may not look that great, but it's probably no worse than their actual store front!  In the same way the advent of the Internet created a mad rush to get on the net (or get out of the game), Facebook has become the new website, and the race is on! We probably get an equal number of requests these days from small companies (even tiny ones) as we do from large ones! Welcome to the wild wild west of Facebook apps!