Can a Product Have a Facebook? A New Perspective on Product Avatars in Product Lifecycle Management

In today’s business environment, customer expectation towards product lifecycle information accessibility and quality is rising. Concepts such as the Internet of Things (IoT) respond to these demands enabling products becoming “intelligent” and capable of interaction. Simultaneously, society is changing with people spending more and more time online. Social networks allow them to interact richly with both their personal and professional contacts. Users of social network share information about their lives with a wide network of people who can respond directly. Being the most widely used social network Facebook’s functionality and usability have continuously evolved, culminating in the introduction of the timeline. The timeline is a representation of the users’ entire life, de facto managing the user’s “lifecycle” information. Considering the above developments, the question arises, whether it is feasible for a product to have a Facebook which acts as its product avatar, and whether that would contribute towards fulfilling the increasing customer demands towards product lifecycle information accessibility and quality?