A quick Google search for Facebook Fatigue yields over 3,000,000 hits. Media types were already noting leveling off and dipping of Facebook use in January 2008. Of course, Luddite that I am I didn't bother joining until Brandon told me to in March 2008. Facebook was fun for a long while. I reconnected with high school friends, lived the New York club scene vicariously, and posted outrageous status updates. Now that business associates, conservative cousins, and my students' parents have friended me, I've dialed it back and present the appropriate for general consumption version of me.
I'm not sure that social networking sites within a company can work as social equalizers. People go to social networks to let their hair down, to be their non-work self. Sometimes exciting work-related ideas can be conceptualized and explored in a social site, but the few quality discussions that have been generated have gotten lost amongst the drivel. Social networks, just like any tool, need to have a focus.
I would like to more easily target my messages for the given audience within one application. I'd like to tailor my interactions according to whether someone is a brainstorming buddy, my pop culture queen or high school sweetheart. I like being able to see what friends and colleagues are up to in the frames that I know them, but while I don't mind knowing the sleeping or exercising habits of my distant friends, it doesn't add value to my life. While Facebook has attempted to set different groups for each user with different permissions, it's pretty clunky and not that useful.
I worry that similar kinds of issues would arise in an unfocused business or education social networking site. The immediacy and casualness of Facebook is its appeal, but do we need to feel as if we are living in an awkward holiday party everytime we log on?
When targetting social network users with our initiatives we should consider the casual climate that is present in their environment... We can use that to our advantage, probably creating a sense of "this content belongs here" when sharing news about our efforts and even courses themselves... that is, when not actually tailoring our offerings for the Facebook environment via apps or authoring tools like myUdutu...
Posted by: Enzo Silva | 09/10/2009 at 05:55 PM
When targeting social network users with our initiatives we should consider the casual climate that is present in their environment... We can use that to our advantage, probably creating a sense of "this content belongs here" when sharing news about our efforts and even courses themselves... that is, when not actually tailoring our offerings for the Facebook environment via apps or authoring tools like myUdutu...
Posted by: Enzo Silva | 09/10/2009 at 05:57 PM