The Facebook Fenomenon
If Facebook wasn't popular enough already, then the movie The Social Network will make sure that everybody knows about it. In fact, the person I went to see the movie with immediately jumped on his Facebook page after the movie to update it. I guess he wondered what all the noise was about.
I've been a Facebooker since it was opened up first to my university, and second to my, er, ahem, age group.
One of the points made in the movie - and whether it is true or not that Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg really had this (brilliant) insight will probably never be verified - is that the smartest thing the Facebook crew ever did was keep it cool. To do that, they kept it exclusive for as long as possible.
Don't believe it? Just look at MySpace. It started out as more or less a music/teen thing, but quickly degenerated into, more or less, garbage. The people you want to know aren't the people frequenting MySpace.
True enough, Facebook is now open to the general public, but I remember the days when we avidly watched to see when (and if) our university would be added to The List of schools part of the Facebook network. And then there was the age thing.
As most everyone knows by now, Facebook started out at Harvard, when then undergrad Mark Zuckerberg hacked the school's computers to get photos and personal data on the women, and created a "hot or not" kind of website that went viral almost immediately.
Because of the amazing response (in the movie, the application takes down the school's servers), Zuckerberg realized that there was something far bigger than his first, slightly peevish attempt. And from this, Facebook was born.
Now, there is still some debate as to whether it was all his idea, or whether he had help - in fact, the accusation was made that he simply stole the idea from some other students who recruited him (a classic computer nerd) to code a dating site for them. But Facebook never was, and isn't now, a dating site, so that point remains very much up for debate.
What Facebook is, however, is a meeting ground; it's sort of a virtual campus center, bar, festival, block party all rolled into one. You'll find old friends, make new ones, catch the latest viral wave, and pass around jokes, videos, and photos. Even parents and kids share information (though some kids would probably rather not!).
Once Facebook began to monetize itself (that is, sell ads), it became quickly clear to me at least that the ads were even more relevant that Google Mail's ads, which, clustered along the right hand side of your mail interface, are the result of Google parsing your emails and serving up ads based on what it extracts as keywords from your emails. I've said it before in this column, but I am never nearly as annoyed by advertising that is relevant to me and my interests as I am to scattershot, intrusive advertising. If I'm taking a trip to Maui, and you serve me up info about something happening there during my trip, I'm actually grateful for the insight rather than bugged by the wasted space.
Facebook uses a similar approach, relying on your self-declared interests (in your profile) as well as what you choose to click on in your newsfeeds, and what you choose to post. (If I write, "I just saw The Eagles at Austin City Limits, it's fairly certain that if there is an ad placed for an Eagles appearance in my vicinity, there will be an ad popping up for me on my Facebook page.)
But did you know that the information shared with you from your friends posts is also selective?
Facebook still is elitist. Not everybody on your friend list gets equal time.
I assumed, without thinking about it too hard, that one friend of mine had to spend her whole life on Facebook - there were posts from her popping up in my newsfeed all the time. Other friends are never there.
What I didn't realize is that in part she made that happen (by being very active and having lots of friends) and I made that happen (by chatting with her, and often clicking on her posts).
Of course, once you start thinking about it, you quickly realize (in a classic "duh" moment), that of course you're not seeing everything your friends post! Don't believe me? Just click on one of your friend's pages, and you'll find dozens of posts you've never seen. If every post from every friend on your list popped up on your newsfeed, you'd be deluged and it would all become just so much noise. Instead, Facebook uses some (secret) smart algorithm to decide which posts make it to the feed and which don't.
In a recent article in The Daily Beast, Thomas E. Weber explains that there really is a system, and it's not an easy one to crack. In short, the more your friends click on your links, the more you'll get into the newsfeed. But in order to have friends click on your links, they've got to see that you linked to something! If you're popular with your buddies, you'll eventually make the feeds, as they will visit your page often enough to get the ball rolling.
So, if you're just getting started, tell your friends, sign them up, and ask them to visit your page as often as you can.
I've been a Facebooker since it was opened up first to my university, and second to my, er, ahem, age group.
One of the points made in the movie - and whether it is true or not that Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg really had this (brilliant) insight will probably never be verified - is that the smartest thing the Facebook crew ever did was keep it cool. To do that, they kept it exclusive for as long as possible.
Don't believe it? Just look at MySpace. It started out as more or less a music/teen thing, but quickly degenerated into, more or less, garbage. The people you want to know aren't the people frequenting MySpace.
True enough, Facebook is now open to the general public, but I remember the days when we avidly watched to see when (and if) our university would be added to The List of schools part of the Facebook network. And then there was the age thing.
As most everyone knows by now, Facebook started out at Harvard, when then undergrad Mark Zuckerberg hacked the school's computers to get photos and personal data on the women, and created a "hot or not" kind of website that went viral almost immediately.
Because of the amazing response (in the movie, the application takes down the school's servers), Zuckerberg realized that there was something far bigger than his first, slightly peevish attempt. And from this, Facebook was born.
Now, there is still some debate as to whether it was all his idea, or whether he had help - in fact, the accusation was made that he simply stole the idea from some other students who recruited him (a classic computer nerd) to code a dating site for them. But Facebook never was, and isn't now, a dating site, so that point remains very much up for debate.
What Facebook is, however, is a meeting ground; it's sort of a virtual campus center, bar, festival, block party all rolled into one. You'll find old friends, make new ones, catch the latest viral wave, and pass around jokes, videos, and photos. Even parents and kids share information (though some kids would probably rather not!).
Once Facebook began to monetize itself (that is, sell ads), it became quickly clear to me at least that the ads were even more relevant that Google Mail's ads, which, clustered along the right hand side of your mail interface, are the result of Google parsing your emails and serving up ads based on what it extracts as keywords from your emails. I've said it before in this column, but I am never nearly as annoyed by advertising that is relevant to me and my interests as I am to scattershot, intrusive advertising. If I'm taking a trip to Maui, and you serve me up info about something happening there during my trip, I'm actually grateful for the insight rather than bugged by the wasted space.
Facebook uses a similar approach, relying on your self-declared interests (in your profile) as well as what you choose to click on in your newsfeeds, and what you choose to post. (If I write, "I just saw The Eagles at Austin City Limits, it's fairly certain that if there is an ad placed for an Eagles appearance in my vicinity, there will be an ad popping up for me on my Facebook page.)
But did you know that the information shared with you from your friends posts is also selective?
Facebook still is elitist. Not everybody on your friend list gets equal time.
I assumed, without thinking about it too hard, that one friend of mine had to spend her whole life on Facebook - there were posts from her popping up in my newsfeed all the time. Other friends are never there.
What I didn't realize is that in part she made that happen (by being very active and having lots of friends) and I made that happen (by chatting with her, and often clicking on her posts).
Of course, once you start thinking about it, you quickly realize (in a classic "duh" moment), that of course you're not seeing everything your friends post! Don't believe me? Just click on one of your friend's pages, and you'll find dozens of posts you've never seen. If every post from every friend on your list popped up on your newsfeed, you'd be deluged and it would all become just so much noise. Instead, Facebook uses some (secret) smart algorithm to decide which posts make it to the feed and which don't.
In a recent article in The Daily Beast, Thomas E. Weber explains that there really is a system, and it's not an easy one to crack. In short, the more your friends click on your links, the more you'll get into the newsfeed. But in order to have friends click on your links, they've got to see that you linked to something! If you're popular with your buddies, you'll eventually make the feeds, as they will visit your page often enough to get the ball rolling.
So, if you're just getting started, tell your friends, sign them up, and ask them to visit your page as often as you can.
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