FaceBook -- the AOL of this decade?
09:51, 23 September 2009
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If you are of a certain age, then you remember when you got an email address for the first time. What a giddy time! In thinking about it, I'm struck with how much the experience mirrors all the media and trainer/consultant excitement about FaceBook or whatever the flavor of the day is regarding online social networking:My first email address was on America Online, which was the social networking site of its day; it had all its own subgroups, exclusive for AOL members, and often mirroring what was available out on the Internet for the "masses" -- why talk on a Star Wars USENET newsgroup when AOL's Star Wars group was sooooooooo much more exclusive?! Some things that happened on AOL even made the news!
And remember when you got your first email address and thought, gee, who else has email? For me, that was in in 1994: I made labels on my printer announcing my email address and attached each to a postcard, then mailed them out to all my friends. I think my first email was from Todd Turner, a friend from university and now the chief writer and editor of Dirt on Dirt. So began my reconnecting with many former classmates and associates. What are you doing now? Here's what I'm doing now! Maybe you transferred some photos back and forth. Or even a short MPEG movie! Maybe you even had your own web address to share! By the following year, I based my online value by how many emails I got every day and how many people were in my email address book. The sound of "You've got mail" almost made me squeal. By 1996, I based my value on how many hits my web site got.
But those conversations with long lost friends never lasted long, for the most part. There wasn't much to talk about past the "catching up" phase. I got tired of friends and former colleagues forwarding chain letters and obviously fake offers from Disneyland and warnings about some product and email hugs and email prayers and what not. Email became my primary way of talking with friends and colleagues, but eventually, I didn't get excited about it anymore than I do when the phone rings. And web site views? We all realized those were as valuable as the number of people driving by a road sign.
So pardon me if I remain underwhelmed by all the excitement about FaceBook or MySpace (yes, there are still several million people using that) or whatever. Because it just seems like the same song by a cover band.
But it's not just the parallels between Facebook and the introduction for most of us to email and the Web back in the 1990s: I remember getting breathless myself back in the 1990s talking about how people shared essays on their web sites (now we call that blogging) or debates and information-sharing on online discussion groups (now we call that networking) or how you could post a question or need regarding info or tech to an online discussion group and a few, maybe even a dozen, people you never knew would write back with the answer or would do whatever it was you needed (now we call that micro-volunteering). Has anything really changed? Is there anything really revolutionary going on? Sorry, but I just don't see it.
Not saying you shouldn't use at least some of these new tools coming out. Not saying that at all. You absolutely need to be thinking about how to strategically use "old" and "new" online tools -- the web, blogging, online groups for networking, online groups for client and volunteer interaction, instant messaging, and even networking platforms. But don't think there's anything new about it -- nonprofits have been leveraging online tools since the 1980s. The Internet was built to allow people and organizations to network with each other - to share ideas and comments, and to collaborate. All of its tools were built to be interactive and dynamic from day one. While their names change, the tools pretty much remain the same.
What I am saying is that, if all it takes to get the media excited is to take something that's been around for several years and give it a snazzy new name and new packaging, then I guess it's time to start working on Web. 3.0 names for everything.
(and I still think First Class Client communities of the 1990s were better than FaceBook, but that's another essay)
