[This is a continuation of a particular format of blog posts. The first three essays are here, here and here . One is about comedy, one is about my home city of Toronto, and the third is about, um, cats.]
1. These topics are completely random. I have no idea how I’m going to get 1000+ words out of this.
1a. I feel like this won’t be particularly entertaining. I apologise in advance.
2. In the overall scheme of things, I think I feel positively about Facebook. It’s officially A Good Thing in my book.
3. I first opened my Facebook account in 2005. It feels longer ago than that. At that point you needed a university email address (ending in .ac.uk) to sign up. I worked for a university then, so I cheated the system a little bit. I remember being immediately impressed with how clean and simple the site was. The two main social networking sites at the time were Myspace.com and Bebo.com. Facebook was way better, even from the start.
3a. God, Myspace really was horrible, right? I’d forgotten how much of a shitshow that site was.
4. There are 477 photographs of me on Facebook. The vast majority of those have been uploaded by other people. I’ve only owned a camera for a very short space of time over the last ten years, and there’s very little photographic evidence of my existence.
4a. I’d guess that roughly 65% of the photographs of me on Facebook involve me being drunk.
4b. Maybe 80%.
5. I’ve never thought of myself as particularly photogenic. I’m actually glad not many photographs exist of when I was a teenager. I was not a handsome child.
6. I’d like to think I’m more aware of how to use Facebook than most people. I was employed by a couple of companies to help them set up and maintain Facebook pages/profiles. It’s a very, very powerful site. This skill isn’t something I’m proud of. “I’m good at using facebook” isn’t a boast that impresses people. It’s kind of like saying you’re good at programming VCRs.
7. The lack of privacy thing bothers me a little bit, but true privacy is really a thing of the past. I think the current generation will be very comfortable with sharing every aspect of their life with everyone else. Facebook (and Twitter) are only going to become more powerful in the coming years.
7a. Everyone should learn how to use the privacy settings in Facebook. They can be incredibly specific about how you share your information. I have seperate list for every ‘friend’ on Facebook. Certain people won’t see anything I post. Others can see EVERYTHING. Most are somewhere in between.
7b. Don’t try to work out what list you’re on. Nothing good can come of it.
7c. Don’t take it personally if you’re on a restricted list. It’s not that I don’t like you. I just don’t want to bother you with the minutiae of my life.
8. Now that I’m doing standup comedy, I’ve started a facebook fan page. I’m not convinced it’s important, but lots of other people are doing it, so I figured I might as well follow the crowd. You can ‘like’ me here.
8a. It’s weird that I can count the number of people who ‘like’ me. I think that focussing too much on that particular number can’t be good for my self esteem.
9. Facebook events are a good thing, but the constant updates can get annoying. If you have an event on Facebook, don’t spam me every day in the week leading up to your event. If I’ve said that I’m coming, I’ll be there. If I’m undecided, it’s because I might have something else that I have to do that day. If I say I’m not coming, it’s either because I don’t like you, or I have something else going on. Neither of those things will be changed by a message that says “Hey you guys, remember my event is tomorrow! Come along!”. Facebook does a really good job of reminding people of upcoming events in the sidebar, so one message is enough.
9a. There are two different types of marketing: interruption marketing, and permission marketing. Interruption marketing is when you stop someone doing whatever it is that they were doing to yell at them about that thing that you want them to know about (think TV commercials). Permission marketing is when I’ve said to you that I’m interested in what you have to say, so I’m giving you permission to tell about stuff that you think I’ll like (think signing up for a newsletter for a store you like). Permission marketing is good, interruption marketing is bad. Facebook events start out as permission marketing. The more messages you send out, there more it turns into interruption marketing.
9b. I’ve signed up to a lot of comedy show Facebook pages. Some of them are okay, but none of them are great. I’m hopeful that I’ll be able to start up my own room in the next few months, and I’ll try to do things a bit differently.
9c. For example: seperate pages for comics and audience members. They are two different audiences that deserve two different pages.
9d. Another example: One central event page for each week that features videos of each of the acts. People should know in advance what they’re letting themselves in for.
9e. One more: Each of the comics on the bill should be administrators of the page, and should invite as many people as possible. I’ve seen four different event pages for the same show before. Social proof is important - if people see that a bunch of people are coming to the show, they’ll be more likely to come along.
10. Enough marketing talk.
11. My favourite thing about Facebook is keeping in touch with people that I live very far away from. It’s nice to see what those folks are up to.
11a. It’s weird seeing pictures of people that I haven’t seen for years and how they’re changing. A dude that I worked with in 1999 added me on Facebook a couple of weeks ago. He looks very different, and he has a kid now. I don’t think that will ever stop being weird.
11b. Facebook allows you to compare how you were years ago, to how you are now. I can think of no other place that allows you to do that - even with old fashioned printed photographs. The longer facebook goes, the weirder this will be for everyone. In ten years I imagine there’ll be a lot of people with “I looked like that?”
11c. This might lead to increase in plastic surgery. Through Facebook you’ll be reminded of when you were young and handsome more than in any other point of human history. People will either feel great about getting older, or feel like they have to change something. I’m betting more people will feel the latter. We can’t all grow into our looks.
12. The overall point I guess I’m making is that we can’t really say for sure how important Facebook is going to be, or predict the long term effects of it’s technology. All I know is that 17 year olds nowadays care a lot less about their privacy now than I did in 1999.
13. Yeah, so that essay wasn’t that great. Tomorrow is another day. Good for you for sticking it out to the end.
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