Face Time for Facebook

by nicole ~ April 10, 2009

As I sit here scanning the day’s headlines, an IM pops up from a former colleague…“Well, I’m overwhelmed with social media,” she says. 

Personally, I’m overwhelmed with news about social media this week. 

While it isn’t exactly news, yesterday’s Tyra Banks show was almost completely dedicated to Facebook.  Tyra and her audience came up with the “dos and don’ts” of Facebook, which you can find here if you’re curious as to what Miss Banks recommends.

I never really thought Facebook would be a fodder for a daytime talk show, but when a friend convinced me to join the site back in college when it was only open to a few Boston schools; I never really imagined what an institution it would become.  Nor did I imagine that I’d need to know:

Rebecca - can’t believe her time at NU is done. celebrations with my loves at cactus. =)

Candice - Slap me..

Emily - My calorie-free wine just arrived from Illinois ♥

Obviously Facebook is hardly new, but it has been all over the place this week.  The April 13 issue of New York Magazine features a giant image of Mark Zuckerberg’s face on the cover with “Facebook Revolt” written over it.  Inside, Vanessa Grigoriadis contemplates “Do You Own Facebook? Or Does Facebook Own You?”  and writes:

“If there were one word to describe what Facebook has added to my life, I would use it. It’s a multidimensional pleasure: It’s given me a tool for exceptionally mindless, voyeuristic, puerile procrastination; crowd-sourced pesky problems like finding a new accountant; stoked my narcissism; warmed my heart with nostalgia; and created a euphoric, irrational, irresistible belief in the good in men’s hearts among the most skeptical people I know-people who should know better.”

While this may all be true, my former colleague shares her opinion that:

 ”In order to be effective in PR you need to learn how to reach out to bloggers, tweet pitches, stalk people in all different kinds of ways and at the same time convince your client that social media has value.”

So what does this all add up to?  Facebook is news and creates news and as Vanessa Grigoriadis said in New York Magazine, it can’t really be summed up in one word, but I think “multidimensional” is a good start.

Check out these articles for additional Facebook news today:

A CNET report on the aging of Facebook and Twitter users
http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-10215837-71.html

CNN Coverage of Facebook reaching 200 million users
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/04/08/facebook.good.charity/

Reuters on a potential New York City Facebook office
http://blogs.reuters.com/mediafile/2009/04/09/facebook-in-new-york-city/