News Flash! Dummies Man Banned from Facebook!

This greeted me this afternoon when I was logging into Facebook… 

Disabled (!!!!!)

Why was my account disabled?

Your account was disabled because you violated Facebook’s Terms of Use, to which you agreed when you first registered for an account on the site. Accounts can either be disabled for repeat offenses or for one, particularly egregious violation.

Facebook does not allow users to register with fake names, to impersonate any person or entity, or to falsely state or otherwise misrepresent themselves or their affiliations.

We do not allow users to send unsolicited or harassing messages to people they don’t know, and we remove posts that advertise a product, service, website, or opportunity.

Our Code of Conduct outlines the types of content we do not allow on the site. This includes any obscene, pornographic, or sexually explicit photos, as well as any photos that depict graphic violence. We also remove content, photo or written, that threatens, intimidates, harasses, or brings unwanted attention or embarrassment to an individual or group of people.

So, what did I do?  Well, first off, Ellen Gerstein is still very much a part of Facebook.  However, Dummies Man is not.

Back in the good ole summer of ‘07, I came up with the fun idea to create a FB profile for Dummies Man.  I asked our summer intern to work up the profile, and truth be told he did a job that exceeded my expectations and my imagination. 

Over the months since, Dummies Man has been friending people, commenting on profiles and fan pages, and benignly exploring the site.  It wasn’t a huge organized marketing campaign, more a way for us to dip a toe of the brand into the social networking waters.

I guess I should be happy that Facebook takes a more active role in trolling the site for, well, trolls.  Yet, I’m not happy because Dummies Man isn’t a troll.  As an extension of our brand, he was there to have some fun.  People got such a kick out of getting friend requests from him.  But that’s all ended.  What’s really creepy is that all evidence of him has been removed from the site.  No posts, no thrown books (he was never one to pick up a sheep), and no D Man on any friend lists.  It’s a sad day for me in Facebook. 

Twittering

Joe Wikert has a great post up today that was inspired by a Forbes article decrying Facebook and Twitter. 

That post was quite timely for me.  Yesterday, I attended an Advertising Club of NY networking breakfast. The topic was supposed to be “Technology: The Engine of Innovation”, but like many of these events, it barely skimmed the surface of what I was looking to hear. I attend networking events like this for several reasons. One is to get out from behind my computer and actually network. Talk with others who are out there doing what I’m doing, or better, what I want to do. Another reason is to learn something new, be inspired, and get energized about my work. Overall, I did better with the first than the second. The panel was supposed to talk about how so-called “new media” was changing the way marketers promote our brands, and how to find the best mix between offline and online promotions. The presenters were from a mix of technology companies(IBM, Microsoft, Yahoo, Panasonic and Xerox).  For the most part, there wasn’t a lot of “there” there.  They all talked about the corporate vision for brand promotion, but it was too top level to give the audience any “ah ha” moments.  Other than when the most-excellent woman from Yahoo (Mary Bermel) spoke, I didn’t find myself writing down too many gems or insights.  I hoped to hear more about true social networking and real world examples and best practices, but that really didn’t come out of the session. Maybe I read the description wrong, but others in the elevator after the session seemed to have the same perspective.

However, and back to the point of this post, two of the panelists, who really didn’t seem to embrace other Web 2.0 points, were Twitter embracers.  They both said that Twitter can serve as an excellent tool for marketers.  Obviously, this made my brow wrinkle, as the idea of following along with someone’s day online is about as exciting as taking 13 items in the 12 items or less line at the Food Emporium.  But Chris Webb has been converted, Wrox has started a Wrox Twitter thing, and Scoble seems hooked.  Today’s question - will I be sucked in via pure geek peer pressure, or is there something to this Twitter thing? The Twitter tag line is “What are you doing?” and as such, I ask the same question of the Twitter community, with the add on, “How are you doing it?” And so, the adventure begins…

Microsoft getting in the game

Microsoft is apparently looking to buy a minority stake in Facebook, according to an article in WSJ online dated tomorrow.  Some might see this as the ultimate jump the shark moment for Facebook.  Me, personally, I’m curious to see how Microsoft’s oftentimes closed development environment could play out on a site like Facebook.  Either way, you knew it had to happen, and someone was going to do it. Why not MSFT, to get the jump on Google. 

Blasts from the not so distant past

Recently, I was listening in on a phone conference, and hit one of those patches where nothing being said pertained to me or marketing.  When I’m working at home, I sometimes use these moments to stare at the inside of the fridge wondering if dinner will just jump out and present itself to me without any work, or if I’m actually going to have to pull the rabbit out of the hat again (all figurative, no literal there).  Since I had already given up on the prospect of my family having a hot meal that night, I found other ways to occupy my attention, namely organizing my IE bookmarks.  How quaint, you say, whether it be to using bookmarks instead of de.li.c.ious or using IE over Foxfire.  I’m old school sometimes, homies, and it happens.  In the course of doing so, I found a lot of bookmarks for sites I haven’t been to in ages, namely Yahoo & MSN groups and LiveJournal.  I used to run a community for some friends, and housed it in Yahoo, until their ad blasting got to much, and we moved to MSN.  The community for the most part has drifted away (and the story of that community and the drama would make a very good blog series someday, but I digress) but the members still communicate via email.  Some of them moved to LiveJournal.  I had a lot of friends on LiveJournal, many are still there in fact.  But I’m not.  I had an account, used to check it regularly and post stuff, but stopped.  Likewise, I logged into my Friendster account and was dismayed to see I had one friend, and it probably doesn’t count because he works for me (Hi David.)  Even MySpace is seeing me less and less, because it seems so busy that the screen gives me a migraine.  Facebook is still getting me, but the fervor of the first few giddy weeks has thankfully died down.  My blog seems to be the one thing that’s lasting, if you can call something that has been alive since July lasting.  So, am I the only one in this social networking evolution to abandon LiveJournal and crap out on Friendster before I even got going?

Today, if I had to find a place to host my online community of friends, I would probably host it myself on my own domain, maybe with a Hostboard account.  I might set up a blog for all of us to write on, although that loses the great threaded conversations we used to have.  Maybe I would go back to Yahoo, as their ads have gotten less obtrusive, or I would go to MSN.  Is it because we’ve gotten more savvy that we can do this stuff on our own?  Have the tools gotten better?  I think the answer to both of them is yes.  It’s definitely harder to maintain a community or a platform if you don’t keep innovating and changing.  Flavor of the month has translated online to à la minute and there seems to never be a minute to spare.  Innovate or die.  Facebook is definitely thinking to the future with opening their platform to application developers and their $10 million app dev grant.  Time of course will tell, but I wouldn’t count them out just yet. 

I like books as much as the next person, but this is ridiculous

On my Facebook page, I have links to three book library/social networking applications. Two I found on Facebook, Books iRead and Visual Bookshelf. I believe they are both unique applications to the Facebook platform. The third is Good Reads, and I joined that as a separate website and found a plug in that made it a widget on my Facebook page. Then, here on “Confessions”, I have a link to Library Thing. Help! Am I really expected to keep up posting the meager few books I read in my oh-so-precious free time on 4 sites? Something has to give. Here’s what I have determined so far, but remember, I am in the preliminary stages of this social experiment:

1. Visual Bookself presents itself best on the Facebook page. It’s easy to add books here, and I like the feature that recommends another book that you might be interested in, based on the one that you select to go on your bookshelf. On the negative side, it doesn’t prompt you for a review or rating, so it’s easy to forget to put that in. Also, it’s search function is based on Amazon.com’s database.

2. Books iRead also makes it pretty simple to add books to your shelf. It prompts you to review each book, and has a neat feature that allows you to select books you want to read, and then compare them against the shelves of your friends to see if anyone has the book so you can borrow it. I’m a book hound, and the more books I can borrow, either from friends or the library, the better. You should see my house. Regardless….this site also allows you to “chuck a book” at a friend, which from a book marketer’s point of view, is a very cool promotion possibility. They seem to have more going for them in terms of functionality, so I’m going to play around a bit more and see if I can create groups that are appropriate for some of my products.

3. Good Reads is a social networking site for book lovers. I haven’t gone into much depth here, but there seem to be a good amount of options available to users. I’d like to spend a little more time here, because I think they have a lot to offer readers as well as book marketers. I also like that the work here can be widgeted onto my Facebook page. Besides, CLM is featured in every single email I get from the site, so it’s got to be quality.

4. Library Thing - on the whole, I am really not impressed with this site. The feel of it is very clinical, and the interface does not come naturally to me. I’m not able to network within it as effectively as I can on GoodReads. Plus, I cannot upload my books to my website (WordPress is not supporting Library Thing) or Facebook so the site is pretty useless to me overall. Library Thing - not a keeper for me at this rate.

I’d be interested to see what others think of any of these applications, either from experience using them, exploring the interface, or look and feel alone.

LinkedIn: Why bother?

I received the following email recently from a friend of mine:

 ”I use Linked In, but not much…I don’t really know how to use it properly. I am looking for a new job (my current one is on a fast-track to bankruptcy) and I want to be able to network with Linked In, but I need someone who knows their way around it to show me the most efficient way to use it. Are you that person?”

Unfortunately, I am not that person. Try as I may, I just cannot find a way to be effective on that site. I’ve pimped out my page a bit, but since I am not in the market for a new job, I don’t put that much into it.  I suppose I could ask people to recommend me, but that smacks of desperation and reminds me of eating alone in my college cafeteria or being home on Saturday night - the shame and horror!

Does anyone have any suggestions I can give to my friend? He has to be somewhat careful about pimping out his profile, because his CEO is in his network, and would notice if all of a sudden his entry looked like a resume. My first word of advice to him was to get on Facebook. But he really wants to try and make some inroads on LinkedIn. Past that - dunno?

Also, check out the following Business Week article from Jeff Pulver, past Wiley author, on Facebook trumping LinkedIn.

Facebook lessons for parents

Our local NBC affliate had a segment on the other day giving parents an overview of Facebook and tips on how to and how not to use it. 

Even though the reporters were probably not that much older than me (and as we have already established, I am old) the segment felt like I was watching my parents discuss the the new frontier.  Lots of shots of awe and wonder there!  Still, there were some helpful hints. What it didn’t mention is that it’s not so easy to snoop on someone’s site if you aren’t already their friend. On Facebook, you only have access to the briefest of data - sometimes just the name, but if they’ve filled it out, the person’s school, location and a picture if it’s been uploaded. On MySpace, you can see everything as long as you have a MySpace account. So if you’re planning on stalking your friend’s kids, you have a bit more work to do. Of course, as Vicki H. mentions in my previous post, it’s probably your kids’ friends who will add you before your own kids decide to do so!

Ain’t too old for Facebook

My daughter had a swim lesson this afternoon.  I went to pick her up and was chatting with her swim teacher.  I mentioned my offense at her not having accepted the Facebook friend request I sent her earlier in the week.  She giggled, first, and then tried to stifle her laughter.  I said I was serious, and she said, wow, I never would have guessed!  I asked if her surprise was because I was old hag, and she, who is not old, said, well, yeah, because she thinks of Facebook as a goofy thing for kids.

So are the old people full of it when it comes to our sense that FB is the next next big thing?  Are we ruining it for the youngins who are just playing around and having fun?  I’m reading the writings of a lot of people who I respect saying what an amazing OS and platform Facebook is…and it’s getting me caught up in the hype.  I truly believe that it’s cool and can be a great tool to help me understand how my customers think, but I’ve been in this business enough to realize that it won’t last forever, and something will come along to usurp it.

 Of course, I said that about Google and Amazon and never bought the friggin’ stock.  Dammit.

In other news, the earth is not flat

Get interactive or get out!  That’s the message of this article, which shows that Forrester commissioned a big survey to find out what most of us have already figured out - new media requres new methods. Social networking by definition means that people are not sitting around waiting for a message to hit them. They want to do something, get involved, press buttons, whatever. We as marketers need to get off our duffs and connect with them. That’s the same reason I look at the ads on Facebook and say “Been there, done that.” There’s got to be a better way to get my brand message out to customers, and darn it if I’m not going to find it!

Facebook’s new Ad Network

Article in Adweek - the first ad networks are popping up around Facebook.

Facebook has been pretty open about allowing application development.  Beyond the power of the poke and throwing sheep at someone, new applications are starting to show some promise.  I’m particularly interested in the tag that allows you to throw a book at someone.  At this point, I’ve added so many apps I may have to start paring them down to allow for some funcationality and to get back to the clean looking page design that I so cherished when I first signed up. 

This quote might be a bit of a stretch, but it does give you some idea what the power of the platform could be…

“A lot of companies built businesses around Microsoft,” Young said. “If Facebook succeeds at what they’re trying to do, there’s an opportunity for dozens of businesses to add functionality around the social platform and build their own businesses.”