Thursday 18 March 2010

shifting sands

There's been plenty of coverage of the news that Facebook has a smidgen more pageviews than Google. The first time in the history of everything that has happened. Big. Deal.

Or is it?

I might not be a classically trained marketer, but I think it's amazing how the ability to self-publish, share and interact though these new digital channels is changing our culture - and the way we consume (products and ideas). Mostly for the better, I reckon. How about you?

So what about Facebook & Google then? For a long time, Facebook was a walled garden - that's all changed now. Much more of what's happening on that platform is now available to those outside of it. (cue rush to check privacy settings).

My thinking here is not that platforms are what it's all about. It's about being where people are - and interacting where they are. Facebook might be winning the social platform race for now, but nothing in this world is a certain.

When I set up my blog here, I plumbed it in to publish into Facebook Notes automatically. The idea was to share the content with people who might not be into reading blogs frequently. Then I noticed something about a year ago. People started to comment. Which was great. But there were two places with different comments - Facebook and the blog...

Which can lead to two different sets of conversation. I remember Mitch Joel deciding to stop publishing into Facebook and pulling people towards the blog so that the conversation happened there. But may folks just won't follow the link as they like the convenience of doing it all in once platform. Not saying that's right, but it's what happens, isn't it?

So, what would I like? Some way of aggregating comments between publishing platforms. There must be a way to pull the comments for a post into Facebook!

Anyway, it's all sand and it's all shifting. Don't build your house on it.

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