Just Another Blog…Or Is It?

As much as I am annoyed by the new facebook changes into a wannabe Twitter, I understand why Fb would do such a thing. In fact, I have to applaud their efforts for navigating the social media landscape and try to stay on top. I know that one of my classmates doesn’t understand how Twitter can be a threat, but honestly I believe Twitter could be the new trend in the future. Why? Just think about all of us going mobile. If we ALL get the iPhone or Blackberry (which is in the very near future), then we will always have the opportunity to connect to the people around us right then and there. With the microblogging technology of Twitter, it’s like logging into a constant stream of text messages from your friends that let you know if they are planning to exercise later that day, or need a lunch date or whatever. You don’t need to check up on their facebook profile to stalk them from what they did the past few days and go through their photos of their Spring Break. With a mobile device and Twitter, I could just “follow” you whenever I wanted. I think it’s moving our facebook stalking from the past weekend to the present what are you doing right …NOW.

I totally see it from a business standpoint of why facebook would want to become Twitter and not lose their fanbase. I’ve noticed that despite all the fb complaints, people are fb tweeting much more often. Facebook wants to stop anyone from going over to Twitter in the future mobile generation. I am still annoyed though. Like someone said in class, I don’t want to “follow” all of my facebook friends. I might want to check their pictures and profiles every once in a while or wish them a happy birthday, but I don’t want to know their every move or thought on their mind. I still would use Twitter to get only the few people that I actually care about what they are doing. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.

Facebook is making an admirable attempt at trying to compete with Twitter, but in the process they are just copying Twitter and not differentiating facebook from Twitter. Facebook needs to go back and focus on what made them popular in the first place. Even though Twitter may be a big deal for me in the future, I still would stalk people’s pictures and friends on Facebook. Fb needs to realize their niche and expand upon that instead of copying Twitter. OR…just make a facebook-led spinoff that could compete with Twitter on a bigger and better basis. Take advantage of the user base of facebook and make it easier for people to signup for the fb Twitter. Facebook can easily integrate this FB Twitter into the original facebook if users agree to this. However forcing all of us to follow everyone’s status updates is just adding clutter to the home page. I don’t even bother reading it, and it’s only been implemented a few weeks at most. I honestly believe that the old newsfeed with photos, events, and relationship updates on the homepage engaged my attention on facebook longer. Perhaps, I won’t have a reason to check my facebook as often if what I really need is to follow a few friends by mobile. Of course, this depends on Twitter building a big enough user base, to where you have to get Twitter in order to connect to all of your friends.

My personal experience with Twitter has demonstated that Twitter really is growing. I got Twitter a few weeks ago (for a group project technology topic) and tweeted maybe 2 or 3 times. Every week I had 2 or so of my friends add me randomly. I never told them I was on twitter, and I didn’t make any friends they would already know and see me following. It was quite impressive. The same thing happened to one of my group members who has 30 or so friends on twitter, when he first said that he didn’t know anyone on Twitter.

So does this all mean that we should all be tweeting on our mobiles instead of facebook stalking on our laptops? ::shrug:: Only time will tell. But I really hate to say I told you so.

The Birthday Paradox was mentioned in the Shirky book to illustrate how the links of a network can grow exponentially larger than the number of users. Lang diagrammed it by the number of lines it took to connect 5 dots and how many more lines there were when we tried 8 dots.

Anyways, the birthday paradox states that in a group of 36 people, there is an 80 percent chance that 2 people have the same birthday. It seems our class proves that point quite well. Out of the 18 students and 4 instructors (only 22 people), Ken and Joel have the same birthday. today. Happy Birthday guys! =)

In order to not waste your time, I’ll tell you upfront that I don’t have any particular academic news to share with you. However, I do want to share my past week’s experience with social networking sites, and my newfound addiction to all things social.

For the MySpace case study, I decided to revisit my MySpace account after 2 years of inactivity. To much of my surprise, the website was cleaned up a lot! I logged in to find tagged photos of me, application requests, and the typical facebook activities that consume my time. My account even had friend suggestions, one of them who is my current roomie! =) I quickly added her, updated my profile, and then discovered MySpace Music!

In the past, MySpace was for keeping up with a few old middle school friends and to check the latest tour dates of my favorite bands. Now, the website has really added to the music side, and I loved the playlist option on my profile page. I added my favorite songs and now have them streaming whenever I visit my profile. I love it! I don’t see myself using MySpace much more than for music purposes and keeping up with the tour dates, but even then the site has me logging in.

My other discovery. LinkedIn. I first got a LinkedIn when I started working at Bazaarvoice this past summer and added a few of my coworkers. Now, I’ve realized that people come and go quickly in your life, and keeping up with those connections is important. It’s easiest to add those friends as they come, and not try to find them later on. In other words, if I wanted to keep in contact with Judd Bagley I should have done so when he was in our class and added him that day. Right now, I’m in the process of finding fellow peers who I will want to stay in touch with beyond our time here at UT.

Twitter. O dear. It seems like my whole life will be broadcasted to the world if you just google my name. I couldn’t resist the temptation to see what Twitter is all about, and just signed up for an account this past week. My excuse is that it is for my MIS375 group project, and that I need to experience the technology before I can really understand and write about it. I can see how “tweeting” can get addictive. Thank goodness I don’t have unlimited text messaging! =)

So that’s it. I’m choosing to put my information and whereabout on the World Wide Web. I’m also choosing to invest so much time in my social networks. Sad, perhaps. Reality, yea.

To get a complete sense of my Internet activity (for all of you marketing folks), the tabs that are normally open on my browser are: Facebook, Yahoo email, Mccombs business email, Blackboard, Youtube (to listen to my fav music video) or Pandora, and perhaps one of my 2 blogs for class purposes, LinkedIn, or MySpace. That’s me in a nutshell. Don’t judge.