I was flipping through The Economist this morning (one of two publications I subscribe to) and this headline caught my eye:
Beware grannies on Facebook
The story details about how hundreds of small investors self-organized and forced a decision reversal and reimbursement of investment funds. This is a terrific example of the power of citizen collaboration and crowd-clout. I’ve started reading Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. Shirky details several examples along the same lines. If you have some time, watch Shirky’s talk from Harvard last month.
From the Economist piece:
People who would never have met in real life, from pig farmers and retired loggers to MBA students and pastors, created a formidible interest group.
This piece also busts two myths: only kids on Facebook and Facebook is dead.
I gave up on Facebook a while back, having become disenchanted by the moribund groups, cluttered interface, and proliferation of low utility applications. I even started blogging about the withdrawal process itself (http://www.ddmcd.com/saga.html).
Recently I deleted all my groups and I’m rethinking my strategy. I’m beginning to think that Facebook might be a good place to meet up with people I might not otherwise meet, people who aren’t using more “sophisticated” social networking tools.
Note that I put quotation marks around the word “sophisticated.” I’m not saying that Facebook doesn’t use sophisticated technology, but rather that I have no shortage of tools and systems to use for communicating with folks already knowledgeable about social media and social networking.
My challenge is using more traditional networking techniques to meet with potential friends, clients, and employers whose relationships and interests revolve around things other than “web 2.0,” “enterprise 2.0,” and related concerns. It might be that Facebook, because of its availability and media presence, might just be more useful for meeting up with people I might not otherwise meet through more targeted or specialized tools.
Dennis D. McDonald
Alexandria, Virginia USA
http://www.ddmcd.com
I agree that Facebook isn’t dead, but it is changing. More mature, more professional. My opinion, I think that facebook users will simply expect facebook to be more of a marketplace. Granted, as psychological reactance sets it, facebook effectiveness as an advertising channel will be minimalized, but will continue to be successful in other ways.