Facebook followers have had an interesting couple of weeks. First, Zuckerberg and company bought Instagram for a cool billion dollars. It was apparently an insignificant expense, since the company’s board of directors weren’t even notified until the deed was done. Then, the company bought all AOL’s patents from Microsoft for a cool half billion. I am not sure if the board was notified or not. Then, the company released Q1 results, which showed profits down from Q4. Of course, it’s hard to sneeze at a billion in quarterly profits in any case, and a rise to (count ‘em) 901 MILLION users. Nine hundred and one million users. Up from 845 million in December. Yikes.

On the one hand, you can’t argue with all those eyeballs, and I certainly wish I had some of those IPO shares (I don’t). But there’s one area where Facebook has been less than a roaring success – in actually selling stuff. The “like ” button just didn’t do the job. According to 8^thBridge (more about that company in a moment) 57% of users “liking ” a product already own it. Facebook’s answer? Open graph.

Open Graph allows users to do something more than just “like ” something. Users can “want, ” “wear, ” “own, ” and even “need ” something they see on Facebook. And 8thBridge thinks it’s got just the tool to mine and extend Open Graph to drive real revenue within Facebook’s boundaries, while still emphasizing the Retailer’s brand, not just Facebook’s. It’s new product Graphite is officially launching today, even as it already has a stable of pre-launch customers.

The concept goes like this:

• The open graph buttons aren’t just Facebook blue. They can be customized to match the look and feel of the brand being liked, wanted or owned.
• Bridal registries? Who needs them when a Facebook user can identify everything he or she wants for a gift?
• Pinterest? I’ve been a bit lukewarm to this already, but in fact, Open Graph and Graphite extend Facebook into a better picture of the person, not just of their “stuff “. When you couple Open Graph with the Timeline, a picture of a person emerges across time. Their changing tastes, their seemingly chaotic paths to purchase spelled out in detail, the incomprehensible becomes manageable. Big data tamed.
• One-to-one marketing? Graph’s API can drive an email trigger for a great price on an item a Facebook user has said she “wants. ” Similarly, much like Amazon’s been doing for years, the enhanced Graph API will allow the retailer to create interesting cross-sell recommendations or other “things you might like ” based on the data gathered.

I’m cringing a bit as I write this part, but all this can be accomplished by marketing, with minimal interaction with IT. Why am I cringing? Because you know that won’t last forever, and IT will have one more thing to play catch-up with. Still, I am obligated to tell you this. Minimal IT intervention. Period.

This is a first look, and we wanted to take the opportunity to spell out Open Graph and Graphite on Graphite’s launch date. We, as retailers, have to decide if it’s going to be worth the new investment. In the coming week, we’re hoping RSR partner Steve Rowen will publish an interview with one or more of Graphite’s customers. In the meanwhile, we think Graphite and Open Graph are definitely worthy of a look. After all, can any of us afford to ignore a crowd of 901 million people?

I’m still not sure I understand why Instagram was worth a billion dollars. I don’t pretend to understand what the ultimate value of AOL’s patents will be. But I can understand the concept of “want, ” “wear, ” and “own “. I’m intrigued. Thanks to 8thBridge for letting us in on the story early.