The Power of Facebook

I originally signed up for Facebook because Amanda had a page and I wanted to see it. Then, friend requests started rolling in and I kept accepting even though to be honest I don't know who they all are. I've since got into the mix myself, inviting people to be my friends, posting pictures, becoming fans of bars, beers and businesses and every now and then posting an update to my status. After all, everyone should want to know that I had just finished changing a dirty diaper.

All in all, its kind of a fun way to kill time and a great way to connect, however marginally with old friends, acquitances and people I don't remember. Beyond that, I really couldn't find any other substantive value in it, nor do I yet see how this will leverage the 150 million people on Facebook and make some money. With that being said, as I spend more time on it, I am beginning to see the power of Facebook for knoweldge transfer and communication and it is very powerful.

Two cases in point. A friend's father recently died and I learned about it via Facebook - not a phone call from another friend, or the obituary, but from a news feed on Facebook. Rather amazing about it when you consider that it took about 3 seconds for someone who knew this person to get the word out to literally hundreds/thousands of people. The other example relates to Thursday's plane crash in the Hudson. Several friends/acquiantances were on the plane and the word got out that: 1) they were on the plane; and 2) that they were safe. before it was reported on the news. Very powerful tool for communicating.

As to the business side of this, I can't say that I understand it all completely, but I am in the process of immersing myself into understanding Social Media. I am currently reading Groundswell and following various blogs on the topic. A couple that I like are Global Social Media, Groundswell, which is by the authors of the book and perhaps the best resource is the social media channel on Alltop.

Over the coming months, I will share with all of you my findings and the results of my expirimentations with various forms of Social Media. At the very least, I think you'll see a Vann Group Fan Page on Facebook, posting of video on YouTube and some greater usage of LinkedIn and other resources that I hope will expand the reach and readership of my blog. In the meantime, if you have any experiences with social media networks like Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Ning, LinkedIn, I would love to hear about them.