Late to the party

Generally, I would describe myself as an early-adopter - I like the shiny shiny new things, whether they be gadgets or cool websites or even chocolate bars with 'New!' in a starburst. I appreciate that this can sometimes make me the internet cafe equivalent of a pub-bore, but it is the way I was programmed...

So I can't really explain why it has taken me so long to create a facebook account - but three days in, I just don't get it. I've registered, uploaded my addressbook, been friended (but not 'poked' yet), added a couple of widgets and, er, what now? My virtual friends can contact me by a number of ways, through Twitter or Second Life and my Real Life (or 'meatspace') friends often know my actual address and even sometimes my phone number! So what do I get out of Facebook? Emails telling me that someone has sent me a message? Just send me the message already! The chance to participate in the 'How do you like your chocolate chip cookie?' Poll of the day? (I prefer a Ginger Nut). I also was struck by Jason Kottke's post about open Vs closed networks - he describes Facebook as an intranet - surely less interesting than the internet itself.

So come on - am I doing something wrong? Have I missed a trick? How do I connect with books and with readers and with authors? Am I just suffering from social network overload and is it affecting my job? Am I simply too old? Let me know your thoughts, here, there or other places entirely - if I don't find something good soon my facebook account will join http://myspace.com/jeremyet in a pretty short list of deleted web services.

Jeremy Ettinghausen, Digital Publisher

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Comments

[Jason Pettus]

For people like you and me, who wish to use social networks for a specific reason, I think it's wise to seek out ones that cater specifically to that particular subject. Places like Facebook and MySpace, as you've already discovered, are *terrible* for trying to hunt down fellow book lovers, lit-industry execs and the like; there are lots of other places, though (like the ones I use, for example -- LibraryThing.com, Shelfari.com and GoodReads.com) that exist for no other reason than to connect people involved in one way or another with literary issues, and whose tools and services exclusively help that process along. I've met all kinds of amazing people now through the social networks just mentioned, and have learned about a lot of great books I would've never heard of otherwise; it's my humble suggestion for anyone feeling a little overwhelmed by the juggernaut general-subject social networks of the world.

[Maxine]

I recently joined Facebook because a colleague at the publishing company where we work (Nature) wrote an application called bookshare. That's what I use it for, not all the friend stuff. (type in "bookshare" to the facebook search engine and check it out).
My teenage daughter likes facebook et al. because she can form groups of friends so it is easy for them to stay in touch when some of them move to different schools and so forth.
Each to her own. I prefer the personal blog myself but I'm a lot older than the Facebook et al. target demographic.

[brian]

At my age, 26, i'm right on the line between those who use myspace/facebook sparingly and those who use it fanatically. I have friends on both sides of the aisle, so i end up using these two social networking sites regularly. I think their greatest benefit is keeping me feeling (somewhat) close to the friends who have moved far away--london, seatle, austin, beijing. What MyFaceSpaceBook is best for, are passing on little jokes, sharing photos, and just being passively friendly to people you still care about but aren't so close to call regularly, or at all. It's certainly not a replacement for phone calls, letters, or actual meetings.

In addition to their usefullness, i think their popularity owes a lot to the laziness and boredom of most people my age; people who are willing to do more than watch tv, but not so much as reading books. I've wasted so much time on facebook/flickr/last.fm/etc. that i wished would have been spent doing other things. I imagine i'm not alone in this.

My advice is to not try to get deeply involved, but to allow facebook to do what it can for you when it can. It should find a place in your life somewhere around mass emailing. I don't think it's healthy to make it anything more. Like Jason Kottke, said, it's an inclusive thing, and doesn't really "open up" your life to anything. Just more unecessary stuff, really. Like emails telling you a friend has written you a note in facebook. A phone call is always more appreciated.

[Guy Parsons]

Facebook works because it cuts the unit cost of keeping in touch with an extra person to zero, and the unit cost of keeping track of an extra person to near-zero.

I'm sure you've found yourself at events in the past where you see a lot of old, familiar, and warmly remembered faces. At first it's great, catching up with people, and it's always interesting to find out what people have been up to since you've seen them last. But after the 20th time of ruthlessly editing down your recent history to easily digestible soundbites, it starts getting pretty tiresome. I usually end up wishing I'd worn a t-shirt that says: "I'm doing fine, working for a games company in London, my girlfriend moved in recently. And you?"

Essentially it lets you turn the sort of "i'm doing this, what about you" chitchat from one-to-one communication to one-to-many broadcast, which is really useful, and it's really easy to keep an eye out for what your friends are up to too. It helps strengthen your weak ties, if you will.

As for books and suchlike, it strikes me that the constantly churning News Feed of Facebook is the RSS-equivalent for most of my friends: that is, small discrete chunks of information from different sources, combined into a single incoming stream of information. So, if nothing else, Facebook is at least another way to broadcast information about something to lots of people in a format that's convenient to them - just another alternative alongside emails, blogs, that sort of thing. As for the widgets, I'm still wrapping my head around those :-)

(Although one huge drawback is once a group has more than a certain number of members, you're no longer able to message everyone in the group. Which is a pain...)

[Penguin Blog]

Thanks everyone for your comments above - I'm not deleting the facebook account just yet ;-) I've found some people I haven't managed to find through other networks and not only have I been poked, but also Superpoked! I've joined some groups, been found by an ex-flame and found that it is possible to integrate various elements of my digital life together.

During the week I'll be using various different channels - this blog, twitter, Second Life, Facebook and now (I couldn't help myself) Pownce.com to spread the word about something we're launching, so we'll see how effective these networks are, or perhaps how effective I am as a networker.

Jeremy