Facebook as Nightclub
December 24, 2007
It’s not a new analogy, but it should assist in understanding social networks, as to whether they are an opportunity, or not.
When I last went to a nightclub, I didn’t expect to form any lasting relationships.
Historically speaking, giving no details, there may have been existing acquaintances or friendships that might have been enhanced, and a deal or two may have been sealed. However, I never expected to come home with any sales leads for the business ready for Monday morning.
If your company specialises in things useful at a nightclub – alcohol, music, kebabs, etc then it stands to reason you need to be all over that network, making yourself look remarkable.
Actually, any consumer business might reasonably benefit if they’re remarkable enough.
I did a quick search to see if anyone else had made the facebook nightclub analogy - and of course, it’s been done rather well
Giles Bowkett says that “the cool place to be” changes and is naturally cyclical.
The google search showed a Jaiku comment - saying that facebook tags and installs tracking devices on the people showing up to its ‘nightclub’.
(I didn’t know Jaiku comments showed up in searches..I wonder if that is common knowledge)
Om Malik got this months ago, as per usual.
I suppose that it’s ironic that one of the businesses that stands to do well out of facebook is nightclubs.
Facebook video, fun being poked?
December 19, 2007
This is spot on in my book,
For the record, my book isn’t facebook -
Blogs are like presentations, wheres the conversation?
December 17, 2007
As yet another social network buzz is starting to die down…..
A recap on ‘what’s happened so far’
Various forms of electronic communication have been invented.
The key aspect to all of them. Asynchronous.
We only have one piece of attention to give at any one moment, and so, asynchronous technology gives us massive productivity benefits – conversations can be carried out over a period, whilst doing other things.
This is true of
- Email,
- IM,
- Blogs,
- Wikis,
- Social networks
Electronic conversations are also much more powerful because they’re written down, - searchable, discoverable, interactive whilst being less sensitive to time, (timefree)
BUT – the crucial piece is that none of this software truly yet delivers a full conversation electronically.
For all of the marketing sector telling us that they are having conversations with their audience with their blogs – the reality feels more like they are making a ‘presentation’.
A blog is like a presentation in that someone makes their point, and the audience can comment or ask questions afterwards and then leave the building.
This isn’t exactly an example of a roundtable asynchronous timefree conversation is it? I make a comment and then have to remember to come back to see the response, or other people’s questions?
It’s just not intuitive – where is the user interface for our conversations? All over the place on other people’s blogs, that’s where.
Conversations shouldn’t be kept by just one of the contributing parties, and marketers would probably like to continue the conversation with people even after they’ve left the building.
Solve that one and then we’ll enable it with unified communications.
Similar themes
There is a useful ‘zeitgeist’ post by hugh macleod over on his blog, gapingvoid. Echo’s are here at Stowe Boyd’s blog, and I have to agree with both Stowe and Hugh, running a blog is a powerful learning and communicative experience, not to be undersold.
However, it is clear from the comments on the gapingvoid that other people are also still looking for other tools to keep the conversation going, and I think I’m agreeing that there is still some stuff missing (as well as being all over the place).
It feels like it wouldn’t take much to link blogs, comments and conversations, and I’m wondering whether this linked article here at gigaom is alluding to something. Although it talks about identity and Wordpress, the phrases “inside out social network”, and “the social graph” do resonate.