

Facebook is basically designed like a lobster trap with your friends as bait - blasdel
http://news.gilbert.org/OutsmartingFacebook

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shizcakes
Honestly, this is way over-dramatized.

>1\. The Facebook upsides are much smaller than we think.

When I joined Facebook, back in the 'college-only' days, there weren't that
many people there. It was about linking together with my dorm-mates, writing
silly things on each other's walls (which were just overwriteable textareas),
and generally wasting time. While the political motivations of the Facebook
creators are debatable (I've heard bad things), on the simplest level, it's
just a site where you post some information. They don't own your personal
information. It's not a f __ __ __trap. It's not the only one (Orkut, Myspace,
Friendster, etc). At the end of the day, I don't care if an advertiser knows
that I am friends with X and I like rock climbing. If they want to market
pertinent offers to me, who knows? I might actually be interested.

This entire article is such a massive vortex of nothing ("Post stuff
elsewhere, too") that it is evoking an emotional reaction from me. Who needs
to be told this stuff?

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blasdel
From experience, I know that the directors of nonprofits need to be told this
stuff!

I've run into a downside he doesn't touch on: On Facebook it's plainly obvious
to users when people aren't engaging with you -- there's a reverse network
effect.

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tokenadult
_On Facebook it's plainly obvious to users when people aren't engaging with
you -- there's a reverse network effect._

Please tell me more. I want to be sure I understand what you are saying here.

~~~
blasdel
With a normal web presence, it looks the same no matter how many people are
visiting it.

With Facebook and other social idioms, it will be clear from the first
pageview if noone showed up or if everyone left. The page/group's point in the
hype cycle and demographics are obvious too.

Users can identify a failed launch or a ghost town at first glance, intuit
that there's nothing there, and click away -- all without looking at your
content.

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nick-dap
As an online organizer I can say that this is the best website I've discovered
in ages. I am craving for this information and have been unable to find much
sources that focus specifically on the issues that I face. Thank you for
linking to this site! Really, thank you!

The article itself couldn't be truer. I see organizations going head over
heals into social media thinking that there is some mother load of new
"activity" at the middle of it. In reality all they are doing is waisting time
that they should be spending doing "traditional organizing".

Community organizing is by far time better spent. I will submit to the
experiences of a community organizer any day of the week. These people are the
ones making any difference. They are the ones nurturing real connections with
real people. By contrast, friending on Facebook is close to meaningless. We,
online organizers, are here for a ride trying to figure out what to do with
this relatively new medium (the Internet in general). The best tool an
organizer has in her arsenal is a face to face meeting where you can build a
real connection. This tool is taken away as soon as you move online.

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tokenadult
I just posted this link on Facebook, and told a friend who works for a
nonprofit organization that has a Facebook page about it. This is important
information for people who support nonprofit organizations.

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TrevorJ
For me, Facebook functions the same way my address book does: I pick it up
when I want to contact somebody, and never for any other reason.

