There’s always something to howl about.

Tag: Facebook (page 1 of 1)

What if Twitter and Facebook go Away – Do you have an Exit Strategy?

Chris Pearson is a pretty smart dood.  He’s the developer of the Thesis theme that I use on all of my blogs.  It’s a pretty cool premium theme…but I’m not here to pitch WordPress themes.

Yesterday I received and email announcing some proposed changes in the next version of Thesis and in this email it included a link to a Video interview with Chris Pearson.

For the first 3 minutes, most of the talk is about changes to the Thesis theme….and then it gets interesting.

He starts to talk about the future of Twitter and Facebook and poses some very interesting hypotheses.

Here’s the video (can’t embed the vid for some reason, so check it out and come back) – go ahead and jump to about 3:08 to get to the good stuff.  Then, let’s talk about it.

Chris Pearson Interview - The future of Twitter and Facebook

Ok, so Chris brings up some pretty interesting points right?  I mean, think about how massive of a push there is for the RE.net to jump into the almighty Facebook Fan Page and Twitter stream life rafts to float safely to the shores through turbulent real estate seas.

Do you think that Facebook and Twitter care how or why you contribute content?  No, they could care less.  These are popularity contests to see who can get the most groupies.  Once these communities gain celebrity status, they are finally in a position to execute on their end game…..find an investor.

What is an investor going to do?  Use the traffic to the community as leverage to sell advertising or sell subscriptions to generate revenue.  Do you think either of these sites will ask you first if it’s ok if they use their platform for this reason?

Remember when Facebook tried to change their terms of service to say that all of the content on the site was 100% owned by them and could be used any way they see fit?  Do you really think that just by changing the verbiage in the terms of service that it changes the way they view your content?

I know there are hundreds of Twitter and Facebook snake oil salesmen out there crafting the next great real Read more

Social Media, Facebook, Identity and Complex Relationships

hamlet.jpgThe advent of social media has changed the way we communicate, do business and relate to the internet. Now everyone has the opportunity and means to create their own hamlet in the kingdom of the web. In the kingdom of the web countries are being formed and the good news is that the New Country is the country that should be — free, prosperous and open to those with the ambition to create.

Facebook has become a platform (free country) whereby applications and features can be added outside central control. In my opinion, Facebook has created the standard. The mistake many social media efforts made was creating centrally controlled sites not open to the many possible applications from outside. Facebook is creating something endlessly fascinating, chockful of possibilities for individuals to create their worlds and establish their identities.

Furthermore, Facebook is creating an information stream that will most likely become more and more powerful as time goes on and more applications are added, and as more and more people use it to share their links, offerings, wisdom and news. The great thing about it is that the information is user-generated and not controlled by Facebook’s idea of what is valuable.

This combination of open-source and open-use whereby the user can create a hamlet of personalized space to create identity and share with friends and associates is incredibly attractive to those who want to establish presence and a base of operation. An operating system where the user has control to develop their own information network is changing the way the internet is used. I have only begun to see the possibilities for my system — not only business-wise as a real estate broker, but as a person utilizing the internet to create social space that gives me identity and enables me to connect to streams of useful and enriching information — and to create complex relationships that form a diverse network.

Perhaps “complex” is not the best word, but what I mean is the operating system builds a diverse network of relationships that are connected in more and more far-reaching ways — from friends, to consumers, to colleagues, to Read more