Back on Facebook – have to come clean

Ok, I am going to have to ‘eat crow’ on this one. I am back on Facebook and actually finding it much better second time around. I’ll be back to explain more on this rift at a later date… On a side note: new rule for social media – ‘do not update your FB status via Twitter.’

Posts You Should Read on AdViking

There are a number of interesting posts over on sister site AdViking worth a read this week if you have time:

• Google blames their tech - trying to save face with WAN
• Microsoft moves – buying Rapt
• Google shmoogle and OpenX
• Beacon Sucks - this is a sweet review of the Zuckeberg interview at SXSW!

Facebook Declines in the UK – did I start a trend?

This news – see Facebook ’sees decline in users’ – about Facebook in the UK brought a small wry smile to my face. Maybe I started a trend by quiting Facebook last month in an effort to find more time for “real social networking”!? I need to put together a definition of what I mean by real social networking – but in a nutshell what I mean it is networking offline in the real world with real people by phone or face-2-face.

Back to FB – I know the drop was only 5% which could really just be a case of a long and bad holiday hangover. Who knows? Or maybe there just is too much competition for out limited attention (see attention economy for more of an idea of what I mean) in the social networking space. I liked this table the BBC had on the top 10 social networking sites in the UK – BBC in at No 5, nice.

Social Networking Blogs etc

Yesterday a friend of mine asked me “do you by any chance know any good blogs or reports on social networking, especially from a monetization andmarketing point of view?” So I pulled together the list of links below for him taht I am now sharing with the blogsphere:

Might be worth getting this report:
http://radar.oreilly.com/research/reports/facebook.html

RWW will have some good posts:
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/consumer_apps_2007_year_in_review.php

This one is also good:
http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/11/06/myspace-and-facebook-launch-new-advertising-products-why-hyper-targeting-social-ads-and-rise-of-the-fan-sumer%E2%80%9D-matter-to-brands/

Plus there will be asome links off my posts on MySpace:
http://afullerview.wordpress.com/category/myspace/

There are specific MySpace and FB blogs – I would hunt around for
these by searching on Google. Here are a few links -
http://www.allfacebook.com/
http://adonomics.com/
http://www.alleyinsider.com/2008/01/-the-big-question-for.html

There is a good list of Social Media Marketing on SEL blogroll -
http://searchengineland.com/ – list below:
10e20 Blog
Brent Csutoras
Cornwallseo.com
Collective Thoughts
LinkedIn Blog
Mashable
Micro Persuasion
Muhammad Saleem
Pronet Advertising
ViperChill
Tamar Weinberg

Note: if anyone know of any other good blogs or reports on social networking please comment and share. Thanks.

Why I am quitting Facebook

Yes, that’s right I have deactivated my Facebook account and am “officially” quitting the social networking service. Some people will ask me why, others we get it already and then some may even wonder “what’s the deal with FB in the first place”.

Don’t get me wrong, I am not politically or morally against Facebook like some pundits (but I completely agree with Tom on spending more time in the real world and that neocons suck) nor I am not interested in online social networking. I have simply found Facebook to be a useless service and a complete waste of my time. This move it really part of personal “online downsizing” efforts (this is a life hack, trust me!). I am downsizing so I can have more time to do fun stuff in the real world – like go to Tumble Tots with my little one, go to pub with mates, go for a run, do xxx with my wife and maybe even finally learn to play the ukulele. I want limit what attention and time I give for online stuff (Note to self: there is alink to the ‘attention economy’ thread to this move). You get the idea.

I estimate that for me Facebook easily eats up at least 1 hour a week. That’s 52 hours a year. According to piece in the BBC back in Sept, Facebook is costing companies as well. I have too many online accounts and too many online services that want my attention. My time is valuable. So, I am downsizing.

This week I am cutting the following as a start:

1. Facebook
2. Twitter
3. Dopplr
4. BlueChipExpert

I am sure I can find some others to kill off as well… Instead, I am going to focus my time online. For me, LinkedIn works well. I am haevy into email, blogs, news and search. That should keep me busy. I can use YoutTube, Flickr and del.icio.us to get the same type of functionality from the better parts of FB.
What did I like about FB?

• The fun wall
• Connecting with a few old friends

For the fun wall there are better services out there (YouTube, Flickr, etc). Old friends can find me online and if I have old friends who are hard to find, well maybe they want it that way.What did I hate about FB?

1. emails telling me go get messages
2. lack of useful stuff
3. waste of time
4. to much hype
5. slow, sluggish service
6. friend request from people I barely know or don’t really like – see Costanza Rule
7. Groucho 2.0 Rule

So, I say let’s all try to spend more time doing “real social networking” and spend more time offline in 2008. That’s it for now. I would like to hear from other people who have quit Facebook.

Note: I will be back to update my Social Networking Hype and 7 Rules for Success next week.

Facebook Growing Pains – My 1st FunWall Spam Post

Well, its like the old days of email. When you’re Mom or some ancient Uncle who just got onto email and then decides to forward you some email warning (that’s totally bogus)… What I mean, is I just got the following posted onto my FunWall:

Attention all Facebook membeRs.
Facebook is recently becoming very overpopulated,
There have been many members complaining that Facebook
is becoming very slow.Record shows that the reason is
that there are too many non-active Facebook members
And on the other side too many new Facebook members.
We will be sending this messages around to see if the
Members are active or not,If you’re active please send
to other users using Copy+Paste to show that you are active
Those who do not send this message within 2 weeks,
The user will be deleted without hesitation to create more space,
If Facebook is still overpopulated we kindly ask for donations but until then send this message to all your friends and make sure you send
this message to show me that your active and not deleted.

Founder of Facebook
Mark Zuckerberg

So, either Facebook is in big trouble or its now “stupidbook” or its simply becoming infiltrated by newbies and hackers. Fo now I am calling it growing pains of a new social medium. Learning to walk and talk is hard work.

Consumer Apps Post on RWW

Need to dig into this piece at RWW – some interesting analysis and comment. I am clipping the MySpace vs. Facebook traffic graph as well for the record (see below).

Various Things from the Past Few Weeks

Nothing new in this post. This is just a list of some of the interesting things I noticed over the past couple of weeks and want to dig into when I get some down time over the X-Mas holiday…

Ask release 2007 search data:

Ask.com’s Top Real Deal Searches of 2007
1. MySpace 6. Cars
2. Dictionary 7. Weather
3. Google 8. Games
4. Themes 9. Song Lyrics
5. Area Codes 10. Movies

Greg Sterling has a summary from GYM, Ask and AOL… Also on GS a guest piece from UK based We Love Local guy. The power or power searchers at JB’s searchblog. Facebook v. Newspapers.

Apparently total measurable ad spend is slowing, this is interesting has having spent time blogging and exploring the social media side of the Web over the past couple of months I can see that smart advertisers and marketers will be doing other types of activities that support advertising. This is meme that ties into the global microbrand idea and what Buzzmachine posted as well. This requires some digestion.

Bubble 2.0

They asked us to blog it and so here I add my scrap to the ferment (mmmm, almost time for a beer of the day).

Q: Are we in a bubble? A: Yes, totally.

I think the top of this bubble was the Microsoft investment in FB and the following hubris and poking of fun on the Facebook valuation. We won’t really start to feel the air come out of the bubble until after the New Year when the hangover starts to set in and the cold hard light of winter is hitting us hard.

This video is funny – so I had to add in here as well. Enjoy!




Costanza Rule of Social Networking

This is going to go down in history as a great rule – check out the Costanza Rule just posted by GalaxyD. I am going to have re-bake Fullers 7 Rules for Social Networking success.