Facebook

Sat (well, actually SRO) through a presentation on Facebook today. That's one of the cool things about Agencyland, there are some interesting presentations made by Somebodies. Pretty interesting until the agency marketing, strategy, and general old guard started peppering the guest with questions about click rates and branding campaigns. One exec even was either bold enough (or tactless enough, depending on your pov) to say our clients weren't interested in groups as small as 5,000. Well...goodness...give me 5,000 good leads over 5,000,000, but welcome to the world of Big Business.

I do the Facebook thing, and I'm not sure why. Peer pressure, I think.

On a slow day I'll check Facebook numerous times an hour, just like I'll check email every five minutes even when I didn't have email five minutes ago. (Where is everyone? Does everyone hate me? Why don't I have friends? I need some attention here, people....) I want/crave to see what others are doing. There's something reassuring to seeing someone updating their page, like seeing a far-away light in the darkness, that there are other living, breathing people out there manipulating the bits and bytes in the same sphere that I inhabit. I feel connected, but only slightly.

Facebook is a helluva lot of work. Forget Facebook, social networking is a lot of work. I guess if you want friends, you gotta work for them.


There's the touch, and that's really all there is. C thinks it's all a bunch of bunk, made for the self-absorbed who all they can do is talk about themselves and don't know how to have real relationships. And I think there is a heckuva lot of truth to that. But truth be told, I don't think there's really much difference between dressing up your Facebook page and choosing the shirt you're going to wear to work. It's all for show. Hello?

There's the status message. Updated, it has to be clever and funny and smart. It's hard work to come up with that everyday, and it's important you stay within the boundaries dictated by white middle-class America. John wants to live in a trailer in the middle of the desert with a loaded shotgun by the door is not an appropriate status message on Facebook. At least not in my little world of friends. You gotta fit in, but you don't necessarily have to join the team to play the game.

The shallowness of a Facebook relationship isn't, quite frankly, any more shallow that most relationships I've had in my life. Just like you can count on one hand the number of great teachers you've had in your life, I'm sure most of us hit a certain age and can do the same with the relationships they've had in their life. Most friendships and relationships are just training ground for when the shit really hits the fan, when the chips really fall, and if you're ever unfortunate enough in your life for some general crisis to turn you into a human World Trade Tower you'll find out fast enough just how deep your friendships and relationships are. Most aren't.

Face it, peeps, as a species, most of us are pretty shallow. And I think we all know that. And I think, like it or not, that's exactly the reason that Facebook and MySpace and Bebo and Friendster and Reunion.com et al exist. It's the reason they can exist. People crave touch, and most prefer a poke or SuperPoke over the real physical deal. Whatever their excuse--they don't have the time, the energy. Some will even tell the truth and say society has twisted them to the point where they are emotional cripples and a digital relationship, one they can control with a keyboard and mouse, is preferable to a real one. Did I say preferable? I meant to say required.

But given my rant, I still think there's something there. Something really big. And the problem is we haven't tapped it yet, and I don't think we will before the marketing and strategy and analysis people catch up with their need to quantify clicks and page views. (One page view, to the right person, is worth all the big numbers. That's communication. That's relationships. One passionate true love is worth a ton of one-night stands.)

What's the next big thing? It's not digital. Never will be. The next real big thing will be when digital lets us cut the cord from digital.