Facebook: Finally

I got tired of saying "No, but I'm sure I could learn it," when prospective employers asked me if I used Facebook for social networking.

Lo, I could. I signed on yesterday and I already have 66 friends, mostly thanks to the fact that my friends already had plenty of mutual friends. Had I joined two years ago, I would have had to make a lot of those connections myself.

May I say that it took me all morning? I'm sure it won't take so much time in the future, but even so, that's a lot of time.

What I found spooky was that, as a first-time user, Facebook seemed to know a lot about me. I did not upload all my email contacts, and yet Facebook suggested half a dozen "People You May Know." It was right.

Uncanny.

Clash!

What's a marketer to think when the Economist is saying

The downturn will also accelerate the use of social media, such as blogs and social-networking sites, by consumers looking for intelligence on firms and their products
(From Buy, Buy to Bye-Bye)

.at the same time that the AP is saying

Call it online sociability fatigue.....As social networking grows, from stream-of-consciousness Twitter to buttoned-up LinkedIn, even some of the very young people who've helped drive these sites could use a break.
(Are You a Twit If You Don't Want to Twitter?)

?

LinkedIn II

An article by Dana Mattioli in yesterday's Wall Street Journal says that LinkedIn memberships have increased 36% in the last six months.

This is a real trend.

LinkedIn

In 2003 a friend asked me to join her social network, but I was dubious. Why would I want friends of friends to contact me, and how did I know that I wouldn't get on a million spam lists? I turned her down, thinking that this idea would die aborning.

Often I am wrong, but rarely so spectacularly.

I signed up for LinkedIn last year but didn't think much about my membership. No one I knew seemed to belong.

This year, though, lots of people I know have joined. Suddenly I am reconnecting with former colleagues and trying to build a network as big as Len's (208). Get in to LinkedIn now while it's hot stuff.

http://www.linkedin.com/