No Snivelling

No, this isn't a plea for gifts, but heck, if you're so inclined, please opt for my Amazon Wish List, and not Facebook Virtual Gifts ;-)

Purpose for this post is yet another observation that Social Networking has arrived. In the past, I was always the guy who remembered everyone's birthday, by keeping track of the information in my calendar. Those days are over! Today I've been inundated with e-cards, email birthday greetings, phone calls, and even text-message/IM good tidings! Somewhere in the last 365 days, the world's changed in a massive way, and everyone's starting to hop on the social train.

I almost feel like there's been this incredibly slow traction graph working for the last 9+ years, with websites collecting our information, and actually making very little use of it. But now, a 'perfect storm of social networking' is upon us, and with the mashup abilities and information/profile sharing, we're starting to see the very beginnings of the benefits of the enter once/appear everywhere phenomenon.

I really look forward to the next few years, and seeing how it unfolds in unexpected ways. Of course, I can't believe that I only have 365 more days until I enter my 40's -- acck!

Labels: amazon, birthday, facebook, social networking

I got an invitation to join a MySpace group today. Of course, it turned out to be spam. But, it made realize how nonexistent MySpace has become for me. I never get any mail notices, invites and it rarely comes up in conversation at all. Of course, it's all Facebook, all the time. Is Facebook really the end-game? Probably not, but it's incredible how quickly the game shifted to MySpace, and then to Facebook, rendering MySpace irrelevant to my peer group.

Do you use MySpace at all? Did you ever? If you stopped, what was the main reason?

Funny, because it isn't like MySpace has gone away... it's just become increasingly less relevant for many of us:

Labels: facebook, myspace

Have you started to get the sense that Facebook is going to impact your business and life in an enormous way? Are you looking for a quick and easy way to quickly make sense of it all?

I recommend you take a 2-3 day trip to the Bay Area for a quick-hit introduction to what matters with Facebook, cut thru the clutter of all the things you COULD do, and get the practical examples of what you SHOULD do right now in your business.

This conference, which is being organized by my friend Dave McClure (full disclosure -- he's also a TeachStreet board member and investor), will surely be a good investment of your time and money. There are tracks for both the marketing and technical folks, but I'm betting you'll want to immerse yourself for the full Sunday to Tuesday experience, and then give yourself a 30-day deadline to implement a high-value add application of your own that makes sense in the FB ecosystem.

If you're heading to the conference, definitely let me know!

Labels: dave mcclure, facebook, graphing social patterns

Psst... you probably haven't heard about this thing called Facebook yet, but you will (yes, I'm making a joke).

If you haven't watched the F8 presentation by Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg yet, I recommend that you grab a coffee/tea, and go do that now -- it'll take you ~30 minutes, so make it a grande:

http://developers.facebook.com/videos.php

Labels: f8 presentation, facebook, mark zuckerberg

How many times do you see a homepage that is perfect?

Despite being massive and having 100s of goals and owners, Facebook has somehow kept their homepage laser-focused.

Facebook is a social utility that connects you with the people around you.

Labels: facebook, homepage design, simplicity