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facebook.com
Fons Tuinstra finds Facebook both rewarding and lacking. |
Like millions of other net users, over the past few months I've had my fling with a few social media services --
Twitter and
Facebook.
For me, Facebook was -- and is -- a rewarding experience. Through Facebook, I've created a virtual mirror of at least a part of my real life. Unlike most readers of my weblog, I know who these people are (at least, I know what they want me to know).
I also found some drawbacks to those social media tools:
- Too inclusive. There might be a few hundred million internet users I do not want to talk to. Professional bloggers like Robert Scoble love to add more and more friends to their wide variation of social media, but I'd prefer "friending" functions that would allow me to be more selective.
- What's happening now? In Facebook you can create a bunch of groups that reflect your real life. However, I found no way to find out what is happening in those groups apart from old-fashioned surfing -- no feeds or other ways to indicate something what's new.
- Lack of development follow-through. In the hype of the moment a wide variety of Facebook applications and groups have been established. But just like in real life, after the initial rush enthusiasm there remains real work to be done. In many cases that doesn't happen.
- Poor blog integration. Facebook lacks a good way to integrate its tools into my weblog -- or vice versa. Twitter goes halfway in this direction: I can syndicate "tweets" to my weblog and Facebook page. The Google Talk chat interface to Twitter is very useful, too. But in the end, only a one-stop interface for all my content will make me happy.
Bottom line: I think social media is making progress, but not really there yet.
Excellent points. I'd add a few - that while you...
