Is Facebook still better than sliced bread?

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It’s about Facebook. I am at home thinking:

Hopefully the conversation around FB vs Blogging is not dead. Is it?

In my klutzlike way I have previously referred to FB as a fad and therefore inferred you should avoid getting too fond of it. And I was convinced that come November, FB would be witnessing the ‘rats leaving a sinking ship’ scenario or hastily organising a fire sale.

I was wrong on all counts. It is still scurrilously here. Why? It is defying my logic about fads. Even the friend baiting negative about FB doesn’t seem to have dented its predominance. Crazy. What is this uber-application?

One thing is for certain, change is guaranteed and change has occured. Objectives, scandal, projects all go into the pot called change. And as Rex Hammock states, FB and sites like LinkedIn “have evolved”. Previously Rex had commented,

“When you set up a Facebook account, you�re not weighted down with the responsibility of being a publisher or writer or pundit or whatever it is that keeps most people from setting up a blog. On Facebook, you�re not a Facebooker � you�re just you.”

It’d be fine for me with 20-20 hindsight to take issue with what Rex had said at the time. But I cannot. To do so now well, it’d be unseemly to do so. I wished I had picked up his blog at the time.

The privacy issue, legal case and wave after wave of friend baiting nuisance at Facebook that arose months later after Rex’s comment was made, proved how fast a company like LinkedIn can consolidate its resources to improve their service to business people and assume superiority over another whizzkid application. They did so and showed good precence of mind to stick the dagger in deep while they could. Carpe diem.

During the summer, Robert Scoble kicked of a lot of blog discussion about how maybe the new kids on the social networks block, Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku etc were stealing traffic from us bloggers. A couple of Robert’s blogging buddies were reporting drops of between 3000 - 5000 regular visits. Robert said,

“One trend that bloggers don�t want to talk about? A number of my blogging friends have seen their traffic go down lately. They assume that their readers are off in social networks. I think they are absolutely right.”

Fortunately for me, as this convergence between the blogging diehards allegiance and FB adopters was evolving, I was experiencing more traffic than ever before. New SEO techniques helped more than my output ever did. But even still, I think I should have been one of the very first blogger newbies to be affected by the traffic downturn.

One thing, I think must have occurred post downturn, is that the blogging A listers will have had to sit back, regroup, brainstorm and provide a lot of fresh innovative thought about the fickle nature of the support they had been receiving right up to the desertion point. Did they ever anticipate or realise the pulling powere Facebook would have on their audiences? I don’t think many foresaw this. Meanwhile, while bloggers were flapping about thinning traffic stats, I was cruising unaffected by the blogging blues and charmingly and misguidedly ignored one of my steadfast business dictums:

iScatterlings’ Rule of Desertion Point

While the user and subscriber stats are good & growing, they are so very, very good and delicious. But all subscriber and user bases and stats graphs will eventually plateau and plummet south. So while they are good, whoop it up hard, loud, fast and plenty but do not ever forget to very quickly stick the dagger in so very deep into your opposition by rolling out new product and making your business sticky while the chance exists because it’ll not be there for long!

Luckily LinkedIn adhered to the plan and did get to stick the dagger deep into Facebook while they were distracted. FB took their eye off the ball. And at this time some of our vaunted bloggers took a stand about the new social networks. But then a strange thing happened. Some began to show the strain of keeping up with all that tweeting, Jaikiuing, FBing and powncing etc etc.

None more so than Robert Scoble unless his tongue was firmly planted in his cheek when he posted this on 7th July 2006. In the small post, Robert declares,

“The Friendster patent isn�t a reason why I don�t do social networks anymore. I simply find that they are annoying………I hate these things. Why? Cause I have a blog. My email address and my cell phone number are always on my blog…”

During the early summer it seemed the clarion cry from the A-listers to all and sundry, was to hotfoot it as quick as you could to Facebook or any other new social network if you wanted to stand a chance of survival at the networking opportunities they appeared to offer. At least, this was what their conversation was interpreted as. Many did. Even I did because it seemed the in thing to do. How wrong I was.

But, like Kent Newsome, I too immediately came across several problems at Facebook. Kent did too and said,

…..I don’t find it particularly accessible. In fact, I think it has a very non-intuitive interface. I’m pretty computer and online literate and I can’t figure out how to do anything on Facebook without a lot of trial and error. And if I have these problems, how do you think the public at large will fare? Contrary to our occasional assumptions, everyone under 30 is not an uber-geek.

I was overwhelmed by everything at FB. Mostly by the coldness of it. There was nothing of the intimacy blogging offered which is indeed a far cry and a good few levels away from the closeness the old forums offered us users. And then at FB there were the countless add-ons. And then there was the friend baiting. And that was where I deserted the ship.

As you can read above in my cartoon, I was angry and frustrated. The bubble at the bottom says it all for me! Cheeky.

It was Hugh Macleod who said,

“I personally believe that on average, you’re far better off going off to somewhere like Facebook and building your own social network with like-minded folk, based on your own collective interests, your own collective passions and own collective sense of merit, than loitering around the Blogopshere, waiting for some rockstar like Scoble, Arrington, Cory etc to link to you… and hoping in vain that the latter will somehow transform your life. It won’t.”

Getting A-listers to bless your site with their presence was never the issue for the majority of normal bloggers. Yes there is a contingent out there whose blogging lives are geared to getting an A lister to comment or link to their site. But I think this is applicable to only a small minority. Most are happy to blog on regardless.

In a way there is a condescension and a tarring of us all with the same brush. If what Hugh said is that all we aim to achieve via blogging is to be reconised by an A lister, I completely disagree. Hell I want to be recognised by more than a few A listers - I want all of blogoshere and real world to resonate due to one of my articles. It’ll happen in time. Meanwhile I’ll keep practising and if an A-listers stumbles across my site again as has happened before, I’ll be happy to engage in conversation but I won’t be found waiting sychophant-like for a link.

Hugh is correct. The presence of an A lister at your site will not immediately ‘transform’ your blogging life. But it will enhance your awareness of how to become a better writer. As for gathering together at Facebook with a group of likeminded individuals to persue whatever common interest you may enjoy is a rather glib thing to say. Too easy, too pat. It happens when the participants have not yet tasted the individualism or have their own brand to nurture. Speaking for myself, I cannot see why one would want to change venue. I have my brand going and I am trying to grow it. Also, FB is too busy. Blogging is nicheable. So the chances of gathering a group of likeminded people to converge from time to time (like at the Geek Dinners), stands a better chance of success for the immediate group and extended internal networks than attempting it at FB.

What most of what the wiser bloggers said about Facebook’s sudden and complete domination of the conversations during the summer may have been open to interpretation or quick acceptance at face value. Like most, I made my points rather amateurishly here, here, here, here and here. Ugh! But have had to take a deep breath and reconsider my emotive based outbursts as just that and admit that while LinkedIn did its job to regain the ground it lost out on, Facebook remains a conumdrum to me.

It survives. And it grows. But in so doing it is snaring up 1,000’s of young people who could and should be learning the craft of self-branding (use Hugh’s brilliant Global Micro Branding) writing well at their own blogs. At FB, they have done just as Hugh recommended. These young FBers have grouped off. They have linked in a common interest. But the common interest might not be doing a lot of good, There is a term for the group’s behaviour - they have ‘laagered’ their wagons (like the pioneers of the American west did when under attack*) in a circle to form an inpenetrable defense. Nobody peeks out and uitlanders are treated with the type of skepticism worthy of the Salem Witches trial.

I call it siege mentality. And it is bad. Siege mentality creates its unique inertias, feeding off each other creating a loop of denial. You could say that thought incest prevails. It’s amazing how they adopt similar rationales and outlooks and nurture this to protect themselves and the group. Why? Tunnel vision percolates. Those that do break rank and do get out to experiment might become social network pariahs.

I have not addressed why Facebook survives and will make Mark a billionaire. I leave this to better qualified pundits than I to do. What I do know at this time is that I am facinated by the entire spiel surrounding Facebook and Twitter. I will give FB a second chance and see if I can be selective about who I let become my friends. As for Twitter - one liners? I love ‘em.

During this time I took a pop at bloggers I respect. My reasoning was simple - stick your head above the parapet and I’ll take a pop! I was wrong and apologise.

Paul Walsh received some stick from me. Perhaps unjustifiably so. I regret that the article he wrote no longer exists at his site. It would have been cool to review it again to see why I responded to it so immaturely. Or deservedly so.

**Excerpt from a young blogger:

“What about friend baiting? This is the process of creating a profile on Facebook (or MySpace if you�re after the illiterate members of society) that tempts others to add you as a friend, with the end result being to acquire thousands upon thousands of friends. I mention this because yet again my flatmate has been whiling away his time on Facebook (thankfully he�s off the movie quiz now) and this time he�s been trawling through profiles looking for new friends who look like they�re, well, worth adding� I think you get the gist of what he�s after.”

What do you think?

Is Facebook still better than sliced bread?