Weather or not the likes of Scoble are satisfied with facebooks business model or their direction. The only question I ask is, who has won the hearts and minds of users. And clearly on this front it is and will be facebook. They completely dominate the genre and, frankly I cant see how that changes in the future. I think any attempt to replicate or replace facebook is going to face an enourmous uphill battle. Users don't care about things like data portability, what they care about is the network and in this regard Facebook wins - Game over. Just like the Beta VHS debates of an age gone buy, we can argue Geek stuff all day long about what technology or platform is best... but ultimately to do ministry we must go where the people are....and the people are on Facebook.
I basically agree with Don Dodge - This is one of those things that programmers and techno-geeks are all fired up about, but that your normal every day user couldn't care less about. What matters is where are my friends....if that shifts and no doubt it will some day, then we go where the people go. Until then 50 million facebook users cant be wrong.
Chuck
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The Web is the new "Appian Way" - a technology for spreading the gospel throughout the world - and we get to be some of the builders. How cool is that?
This is the blog of the IT and Web teams at The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. Caution! The opinions expressed here are our own and not those of the church.
This is the blog of the IT and Web teams at The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas. Caution! The opinions expressed here are our own and not those of the church.
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4 comments:
I think I'd have to disagree. Facebook is the new myspace, myspace was the new xanga. Something new will come along and bring people to a new network that "everyone is on".
This doesn't mean we shouldn't use facebook for ministry, but I think we'll just have to keep changing as the new networks arise.
I understand the sentiment but there is a flaw. Facebook has managed to do what the other networks you mentioned have not - and that in language of Geoffrey More, is crossing the chasm. By connecting with the mainstream - non bleeding edge users, Facebook has established itself as the long term winner. There are very specific and particular reasons this is the case, I think chief among these is that Facebook is an identity space. In other words it is committed to requiring people to be who they are in real life. Myspace and the others you mentioned create communities of people hiding behind screen names etc. Thus Facebook is an extension of off-line community - rather than an online community that may or may not extend into real life.
I think Linked In - may win the professional networking battle, but Facebook is going to be hard to beat in the personal identity category. I think what Amazon is to bookstores, Facebook is an will be to this genre. Something might come along to disrupt this momentum....but it would have to be something on the level of the disruptiveness of the move to broadband that derailed AOL.
For me, right now, with Facebook - I'm pushing in my Chips - All in.
Chuck
I have a rule...I don't use an online gimmicky tool if it can only be explained by 15 year old girls where like and cool are used in every sentence.
If the number of users is the primary measure, then MySpace wins by a factor of 4 (200 million users vs. 50 million).
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