Facebook has definitely revolutionised the way online communities interact as well as pose possibilities of web hosting through Facebook fan,advertising and media applications etc. I am unsure however that it will be safe to use this channel if i want to have an "online store" through Facebook. How will the purchase process be conducted? eg. Will it allow Payments made through paypal/EFT/Visa etc . Other issues that may arise are privacy and confidentiality issues...

@phdunay - I was referring to this line in the FB TOS:

"You understand that except for advertising programs offered by us on the Site (e.g., Facebook Flyers, Facebook Marketplace), the Service and the Site are available for your personal, non-commercial use only."

Its under the user conduct portion. Presumably if you are basing your business off a FB page then it is a commercial purpose. So spamming or not I would think you would be in violation of the TOS and they could decide to enforce that whenever they please.

 what do people think about Merchant Circle for small businesses... allows for ratings, customer comments, google maps etc... maybe that's all some small businesses need?

Also: agree with wordpress and ning as well.

However I think if you are a real serious player... you need your own customised site, but maybe 50% of businesses could get away with utilising some of these resources instead...

@ joshAK - yes you can lose your page if FB determines you are spamming people too much (they look at the number of reported spam to the number of messages sent) - that would be a real bummer if you based your business on FB then spammed a bunch of people and got kicked off - but I guess you get what you deserve

@ Clay Cook - it doesnt exist yet they just opened up the new Fan pages to this capability - off the top of my head take a look at Coke (which isnt run by Coke at all - its by a Fanatic of the brand)

@ Silk Merchant - great points - Wordpress is a good option too since it is free and your have tons of control over content and SEO ability - FB may not be perfect but it is headed in an interesting direction that could make it a player

Why even Facebook?

Ning seems like a better option.

Plus there's also Wordpress.com and many others.

Certainly for any business that doesn't need ecom and more advanced features these sites are definitely a viable option.

Some of them even have sophisticated ecom options. Ning let's you use your own url etc, so I think it's definitely a growing trend.

I've already started small revolution in the aquaculture industry of WA with many of the industry groups using Ning because it's so quick, easy and free. See the Marron Growers site for an example.

But as for why you wouldn't do it, I agree completely with Josh - it's about control.

As marketers you want flexibility over all aspects of your business and control. If you don't control it, you can't do anything about it when things go wrong.

Then there's the whole issue of who owns the data, and Facebook's still arguing about that one aren't they?

Also, I don't know any marketer who's willing to give up their data to anyone, let alone something as amorphous as Facebook.

Anyway, great post Paul

 interesting question.

can you point to a fan page that you think takes advantage of all these items mentioned, and thus doesn't need a homepage?

i would love to look at it and understand this better... 

This is an interesting question. As there are many sites beyond Facebook that fit particular niches (and could even be used to drive traffic to your Facebook page if you wanted) it is something that I have been considering for test/hobby projects. I can say that there are a few reasons I would want to have my own site for a business. The big one being controll, if my site is on Facebook and they decide to change the format, I have no say in it, or if they decide that I violated their TOS and suspend my account I am at their mercy. Those reasons alone are why I wouldn't trust my site to be entirely hosted on Facebook, but there is also the fact that you don't know what the future holds for any major social site. It wasn't long ago that MySpace was a powerhouse that everyone thought was unstopable and Facebook changed that in the blink of an eye.

Its a very intriguing idea and one that I think has become more appealing over time (for the very reasons you mentioned above) thanks for posing this question.