I’ve already mentioned that one of the things that I think really help people use and become addicted to Facebook is that people go to the site to socialize and without all the “bling” offered by other social networking sites. The focus on content is certainly starting to get diluted as there are an ever increasing number of applications that are getting bling-like (take a look at the response to “Top Friends” and other MySpacey applications that are making facebook more like myspace – it seems that the “backwards compatibility” issue is something that exists here as well, people want new places, but old feature – complete features??), but at least for now, are delivering a “payload” of mostly text.
But over the weekend, I noticed something else that people really seemed to like about the system. Once they find all their friends, they can “just be around” and know what their friends are up to just by voyeuring (there is a neologism for you) profiles to see what’s been up in their friend’s lives. This little bit of information is enough (if one cares to make the effort to see that their friends are up to) to help people, when they meet in real life, not to ask stupid questions.
That light off some bulbs in my head (I overheard a couple of friends basically commenting on this – “thank god for facebook or we’d have nothing to talk about”), in the rush of what is now life, Facebook trumps email for personal communication because you can provide quick updates about your life – the small details – that others can use to make “real time” more productive. Small bits of information accumulate quickly and can even be controlled to allow people to strengthen bonds and learn from each other’s life experiences.
Some thoughts – any comments?
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