I recently joined Facebook at the suggestion of Jeremiah Owyang. Jeremiah will soon be joining Forrester from PodTech, where he’ll be covering Facebook as an analyst. He has been a big believer in the power of Facebook as a social networking/community site for some time. I am becoming more of a believer in it as well.
I was especially intrigued recently when I asked my 18-year-old son what pictures and memorabilia he would be taking to college, and he replied, “None. I have Facebook, that is all I need.” He continued, “Everyone I know and care about is on Facebook. All of the most important pictures I want and information I need is there.
“All my friends feel this way about Facebook, Mom.”
Wow. What power. To have an 18-year-old boy and his community think that all he needs is this one tool/place to go for information and social connection. No wonder many people are comparing Facebook’s power to that of Google’s. Nothing else that I know has captured my son’s loyalty (and obviously many of his friend’s, as well).
Despite enjoying Facebook and all it offers in social connections, I am not to that level of commitment to Facebook yet. I find it interesting and intriguing to play with as a social community development tool, but I do not yet feel like I have to read it daily to get my news about my friends and their friends.
I know that many of my colleagues and their professional contacts are registering on Facebook, but it seems that they do it more to “be on the site” than to necessarily “live” on the site. It does seem to be gathering momentum and stealing people from Linked In as the professionals community.
What are the rest of you thinking/doing/believing about Facebook?
Tags: Facebook, Jennifer_Jones, professional_networking, social_networking
When the majority of people out their realize it’s not just another “Myspace replacement” it will take off. I graduated high school in 1984 and only two people from my graduating class are on Facebook, about 2-3 people in some of my local networking groups are there that I knew before and 2-3 people for a camp I used to work at are there. However I have made some connections with new people I have meet via blogging (so if you want to add me as a new friend that is fine!)
I wish it had been around when I was younger as it does give people to share more things about themselves and can open new conversations. I run a small company in Greenville,SC and have encouraged everyone on my team to get familiar with it.
I’ve used Linkedin in the past and for the most part it just seems like a resume dump although it can do more. I have a Myspace account but I rarely log into it and it’s pretty much locked down to the general public.
I spend most of my time blogging for business or personal reasons, use twitter as a way to broadcast blog updates and share “personal press releases” for the most part.
Jennifer,
I’m with Patrick. I build my personal community in two ways: 1) through the old-fashioned face-to-face way, and 2) online community building.
However, I don’t blog or use social media sites only for personal reasons. I also seeks ways to use them to build my business, and while I have found some success through blogging, I have yet to find any new business because of Linkedin or Facebook. If there is no potential within social media sites to build business, I cannot justify spending time on those sites for personal connections only, as I have a pretty full datebook outside the virtual world and my day job requires me to focus on business development not fun.
I would love to hear what other business people think about where I am coming from.
I actually “live” on the site.
Much thanks to Facebook’s third-party developer apps, the site has increasingly become my single-sign-on social media control panel. I wrote about it here: http://lisaamorao.wordpress.com/2007/06/25/facebook-apps/
With the new Wordpress Facebook app I now even blog from Facebook:
http://lisaamorao.wordpress.com/2007/07/19/what-cant-you-do-with-facebook/
Patrick, Lewis and Lisa, thanks for your comments. I agree with Patrick that it opens new conversations. Another point i did not bring up about my 18-year old is that he only friends people he knows well and does NOT friend “just anyone.” I find that I friend most everyone and i wonder if you all have thoughts on “friending” policies?
My son, now 22, has been on Facebook for years. He’s an active user with many, many connections.
Several times he pointed me to his FB page to look at a photo or read a wall post or some such, and I casually and tacitly followed his request, then went on my merry way never realizing I was looking at what portends to be the very future of the Internet. Talk about a lack of vision!
Now, Facebook has become such an integral part of my digital lifestyle and I’m straining hard to understand its business and marketing implications.
The lesson here for me…watch what my son and his peers are into because it may become the next, next big thing. And you can bet the next time he wants to show me something, I’ll look with great interest.
My friending policy is to accept all invitations, but with different levels of privacy settings.
How to tinker with Facebook’s privacy settings is probably the first lesson everyone needs to know before setting up camp in Facebook.
Paul Chaney: AMEN! I totally agree. I did the same with my son for the last year. I watch and listen now but I am impressed your son lets you see his Facebook entries, mine will not. He is horrified if i glance over to the computer while standing in his room. He would NOT friend me, as he said, “who wants their MOM as a friend on Facebook?” It is true, I guess which brings up the privacy settings Lisa refers to. I will review those much more closely but I still will not get my son to friend me.