Facebook

[Member Services]

Area Light Member Services presents...a discussion about Facebook.

Are you on Facebook? Please feel free to share your profile link and comment on Facebook in general.

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

I set up on Facebook too but am not ready to share it with everyone yet. I do think the platform is great for representing personal and professional interests. The interface is moderately customizable with a lot of add ons available.

They have a new advanced page layout that gives you more customization options such as page color. You can also set up groups. One thing I noticed is that most interaction depends on friends- or contacts you know. Most of the intereaction seems to depend on inviting people and building a network. However, you can extend your groups to the public and get involved in many groups/ discussions. However, I also think you have to accept the massive phenomena of so many interests being represented. For example, i looked into general discussions and most of what I saw was oriented to Mobsters- a roleplaying game application where you essentially are challenged with building teams with as many participants in the Facebook community who will join you.

I sort of fell into Facebook through a personal family site started by some relatives. turns out to be a great app with controlled access, pictures, videos, and sharing. I have also set up a profile for my professional interests outside of and including Area Light I will be happy to share here and on My Page once I get it going.

[Jared O'Toole]

Here's my websites page. Fan It!!! MindFrenzy

My Profile

[Simply D]

I'm on Facebook and actually like it for networking and maintaining contact with several different groups of people all in one place. One of the challenges I see with social networking is that it's easy to become a mile wide and inch deep if you try to use all of them but don't spend enough time with each one to learn how to best use it. Always use the right tool for the job.

FaceBook Likes:

Fan Pages--Good Promotion Tool

Bookshelf -Find like minded People

Standard Profiles--Less clutter

Some insight to other members likes dislikes (good for relationship building)

Decent searching capability--easy to find people with similar interests

Visibility--A few high profile friends give your profile a lot of exposure

Ability to pull in blogs, twitter, feeds


Dislikes

Most of the applications! -no mobsters, vampires, pillow or sheep throwing please!
Yes it may be fun, but for MY purpose, a time waster. I block them so that I'm not bombarded by distractions and clutter.



Do's

Please introduce yourself when sending a friend request.

Relationship building works online and offline. Be genuine.

Introduce people if it makes good business sense.

Participate!

For ladies in particular (sorry guys) if you get an invite from someone you don't know, check out their profile. If it's a male with 500 attractive women and no men as friends.. run! Guys, yes, the ladies do it too. ;)


Don't

Send a friend request without a message attached. =)

Bombard your "friends" with salesy offers if you don't know them (see relationship building)

Join every group that invites you, it can burn up a lot of your time

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

Nice info Simply D,

Maybe I will see you there once I start utilizing my Facebook account proactively. I like the attention you place on time. It's a major issue I have been contemplating a lot. I've noted on Ning, you can look into your "friends", requested "friends" to see what networks they are on and also who their friends are too. I plan on highlighting my own analyses on my group "The Next Big Ning". However, one distinction I've noticed is the ease of looking into a member's page/ profile on Ning as opposed to Facebook. If, I'm not mistaken you have to send a request to be friends in order to view an individuals page (groups aside). There were some occasions I was trying to look up old friends among a list of people who shared that name and simply didn't like the idea of approaching them unless I was sure.

As a site owner I've got some features I've yet to play around with. One of them is Facebook Promotion. I'm not sure if that just lets me post my group on Facebook or what. I am working on appraching Facebook with a plan. It's a mass market, for example. The sheer volume of members would make it a big time sump for a casual explorer who wants to research what's out there. I noticed there were a few voices (professional/ mature subject matter) being put out into the mass shouting of discussions and got the impression people like that would find Area Light a more comfortable avenue than what they are finding on Facebook.

[Nascent Dynamics ( )]

Hi there, I'm still in BETA development of my personal website. One of my plans is to integrate Facebook groups, but I intend to do some research before I extend myself too much into development. I've visited a few professionally presented groups and pretty much have the idea of what I want to do. For me, I'm interested in the details of creating a professional group and the various dynamics of social networking on Facebook. I've put most of my time into Area Light and am certain I am relatively behind the curve as far as Facebook. I still think I've got the right taste and the things that impress me afford me an inventory of opportunities to set up my groups with my site just how I want. I see this all coming together sometime this year.

In the meantime, I have found a group I intend to become a part of, will use for a good group reference, and think might make for a nice watering hole to network with others. My personal website for Nascent Dynamics ( ) is on Microsoft Office Live Small Business. I've been working with it for at least a year. I also utilize and explore many of the Microsoft applications such as Spaces.Live for my main blog. Now recently they disolved an outdated social networking application for msn.groups. I took an interest because I had been considering the incorporation of that platform. About five years ago I had been a group administrator for a very high traffic message board community. However, just about the time I was dissapointed to find the msn app hadn't evolved, I discovered Ning. So anyways, Microsoft announced it was going to be coming out with new social applications based on its Windows Live BETA's and apps. It was supposed to be more project or group oriented. For the higher tier networks they made arrangements to migrate over to a third party vendor- Multiply. Looking at that, I made a de3cision to pass and stick with other apps.

Today I got another announcement directed aat Microsoft Small Business Users which pointed to a Facebook group among other community projects. I took a look and I think this is just what I was looking for as a good start. I haven't joined yet, but this is on my list and I think will be my point of entry into Facebook. So let me throw the link out to those of you interested. This thread might make for some interesting discussions about using Facebook as part of your online business profile and website strategies. Office Live Small Business

Best, Anthony