Why Facebook Matters
I’m New to Social Computing
I’ve been pretty intrigued by Facebook since I heard of it a couple years ago. I was introduced to the site by my business partner, Scott Spencer, when we started BizZoo. We are no longer business partners (he got busy, I got whiney, the startup started stopping up) but we are still friends. We don’t hang out anymore, nor do we really keep in touch, but I still see his updates on my Facebook profile. BizZoo didn’t make the cut, actually it never left the drawing board, but Scott and I were both captivated and inspired by the concept that people can socialize online and conduct normal, valuable human behaviors via their keyboard and mouse. I am on to a new (and completely kick-ass) start up, Scott is getting his MBA, and we will certainly run into each other one day someday. After all, he lives about 2 miles from me.
Facebook Surprises Me by Taking Me Back
Recently, I had an email from Facebook that informed me that Jeff Bailey had added me as a friend. The funny thing is that he and I were really good friends when we were kids. Having him add me now is a little ironic. He then suggested, again via Facebook, that I add Jay Hargreaves. Now, Jay and I were about as tight as any two boys could be growing up in small town Wisconsin. I still remember his dad, when I was about ten, explaining the virtues of fiber for an aging man (for reasons I won’t get into). Jay was there when I hit a rock and launched from my bike after hitting a small stone speeding down the hill next to St. Mary’s and his mom stripped me down and scrubbed the gravel out of my bleeding shoulder. I had the hots for his older sister. He and I have not seen each other, nor spoken, in decades.
The Information Generation
The really interesting thing about Facebook is that its not trying to capitalize on something people might be looking for and its not trying to convince us that we need something we have so far done fine without. It’s merely a site designed to provide a social medium on which people can be themselves, not some pumped up alter ego, and connect with other people whom they may or may not know in a traditional capacity. Most other sites are trying so hard to be what Facebook is while Facebook is just trying to be transparent.
While the Internet may have made information accessible, it did not make it useful. In fact, it made it overwhelming. Its like dumping six dump trucks full of copper wire on top of a battery and hoping a super computer will come out of it.
People have a tendency to take a new resource and apply it in unpredictable ways. Resourcefulness is probably our most powerful characteristic. I’d say opposable thumbs is an old and tired theory. Out of this abundance of available information and the desire to access it came faster access. From hyper-connectivity came the ability to interact, real time, online. From that came sites like MySpace and YouTube but my site to watch has got to be Facebook. Its an organization of applied social computing that has inherent value and immediate applicable utility. Its pretty freakin’ fun, too.
Synaptic Enhancement
I started playing guitar when I was about 14. I practiced obsessively and got pretty good at it. I moved down the A town to pursue it as a career. I then got into computers and found my priorities changing and, when my son was born, took a break from it. I played a little but my skills atrophied. When you learn a skill such as guitar, the neural connections between your brain and the muscles that execute the action are strengthened and thickened. They become more efficient. Essentially, you have enhanced throughput to those end points. I think this is a great metaphor for this social computing phenomenon that we are a part of. When I started playing again, I woke those old pathways again but they weren’t as strong. Eventually, after renewed practice, I became as proficient as I’d been and eventually got even better.
As we continue to become more socially connected with both new and old acquaintances, we become more socially adept (I am somewhat of a social nitwit in real life). Our interconnections become more efficient. Take, for example, organizing a gathering of friends. That’s a simple and common application, after all. Now that I have access to these old friends, I could let them know I was planning a trip. I have a few close friends’ phone numbers. With little effort, we could all meet up at some club and throw down a few pints in celebration of friendship. Extend that to business and consider how much easier it is to stay in touch with someone after years of silence should you recall that so and so was really good at such and such. I know I have met several people, along the way, who I felt would make really good allies in some future business endeavor. I’ve lost touch with them because tools like Facebook didn’t exist. I very well may run into them again, perhaps on Facebook, and I’ll certainly remain connected going forward. My future nervous system will remain more intact than my historical one.
The Internet brought us access to information. Google organized that information and gave us the ability to find and use it. MySpace gave us the ability to have an online personality. Facebook organized that and gave us the ability to connect and interact. People are far more important than facts. That was fun but it made me want to play guitar. My synapses need some radiohead to reinforce them.
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