Tuesday, July 29, 2008

To Facebook or Not To Facebook, That is the question

Earlier today, I had a call with a customer to talk about building a FaceBook app as an add on to the existing software I've built for him. In the 45 minutes preceding the call, I figured I better actually sign up for Facebook, and poke around.

Within a few minutes, I had logged in, and connected with my first friend. I also made a page for i2x. I was kind of expecting to have the same sensation I had when I signed up for MySpace - a sort of, uh, and the big deal behind this is what exactly? type of feeling.

But that didn't happen at all - between the one person I connected with (thanks Jody, you're truly my #1 friend!) and the folks that Facebook wants to hook me up with, there are all sorts of people I had forgotten existed, but would be nice to catch up with. And that's just the very tip of the iceberg. Amazing.

Now that I've dipped a toe into the world of Facebook, I'm wondering if I should jump all the way in. Here's the pros and cons as I see them - am I missing any?

Pros

  • I'd connect up with people I lost touch with - this could be fun!
  • How can I be a geek on the web and not be active on one of the most popular web destinations?
  • This could be another way to get the word out about I2X. I love the whole notion that folks could be a fan of my business
  • In general, having a presence in more places on the web is a good thing

Cons

  • I barely have enough time to keep up my blog (not to mention have conversations with my wife), how the heck am I going to keep up a Facebook presence?
  • Do I really have enough content in my life to post on both the blog and Facebook?
  • I'm actually turned off by the fact that my profile isn't public to the world (I think, anyway)
  • I barely have enough time to keep up a news feed for i2x which requires writing 140 character updates - how am I going to also keep up a presence on Facebook for the business too?
  • I already have LinkedIn to stay connected to folks, do I really need another way to do this?

Honestly, I'm not sure what I should do at the moment. Oh well, I'll go add that little fact to my Wall (see, I'm catching onto the lingo here) and will go think it over.

Really - if you have though this through already, I'd love to hear what you decided.

2 comments:

  1. I broke down and joined facebook back when Lauren and I arrive in DC. Here is a sort of comparison post I did back in december: http://nickc321.blogspot.com/2007/12/facebook-vs-myspace.html

    The part I liked best about Facebook was that you didn't have to maintain multiple sites. You can easily sync your blog with the import features (see the news feed on facebook) plus you can do things like sync your status with twitter or such. Two other nice features, you can subscribe to a lot of the updates and stuff with any RSS tool. Also check out SocialThing

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  2. Awesome info, thanks Nick!

    You've given me a whole lot to think about...

    -Ben

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