Facebook - Offline effect on our lives.

A reunited old friend through Facebook (FB) recently thanked me (on FB) after a long lost ex-girlfriend made contact with him (on FB) after I had bumped into her and mentioned him and the network group he has established for us all. He was also surprised at my diverse friends network and my habit of posting engaging content into the platform - It's so quick and easy with Firefox FB toolbar.

That's the converging genius of Facebook and I'm just trying to us it to it's full potential. We will all soon have large networks of friends and groups to communicate all our different kinds of messages. We will all have authority and influence amongst each other. It's a magnificently powerful marketing and entertaining ‘sticky’ channel. It seamlessly and elegantly links us all through useful and entertaining networks and ultimately appeals to al our nosey natures. It’s cleverly designed so it’s not easy to scroll through those lists of friends, keeping us engaged for longer with this social platform. How soon until we go to a facebook wedding with a wedding list and invite all wrapped up on a created FB network group? Not long.

I'm generating much more traffic to my blog through FB than the usual channels and this audience is mostly new to blogs too. It’s opening up this new inquistive audience, which is much of the world. They’re discovering what blogging is and coming to realise the hyperlinking and interactive power of knowledge and opinion. Read or just watch David Weinberger’s book Miscellaneous is everything explanation at Picnic 07.

FB is also fusing of business and pleasure. Half my friends are business friends so posting stories on the news feed or blog posts is a form of entertaining marketing too. The meshing of business and pleasure is truly upon us through this platform. Businesses that shut off FB (as I know some traditional London ad agencies are doing) will severely damage their business prospects and restrict their ability to evolve in these exciting new times. I was visiting a well known London digitally integrated agency recently whose primarily remit is developing branded ‘sticky’ useful (ideas) widget applications for FB. FB seems to be far more engaging then TV. Common sense tells you that the majority of the working population sits at a desk and an interactive screen and they are in front of it on average at least fifty percent more time, at most one hundred percent more time daily than a TV screen. Say four hours a night in front of TV, say six to eight hours a day at their desk and usually both in the evenings!  What does that tell you about the way we will use media in the future?

I'm glad that my NYC friend is now communicating with ex after all this time. That’s FB for you. I also reconnected with an old friend who I hadn’t seen for fifteen years and after corresponding he invited me to his expenses paid birthday party to the Caribbean where he now lives. In the end I couldn’t go but that would have been a major offline experience stemming from the social network.

FB allows us elegantly and simply to bring people together offline through online.  My NYC friend and I recently met at a reunion because of the network group he had created. Offline I earn my living by traditionally matchmaking, linking different people to generate new creative content and now to fuse new technological ideas too into creativity. I hopefully inspire people. FB only makes my life easier and more efficient in that process and gives me another platform not just to promote, market and entertain but also illuminate, educate and inspire friends beyond my industry to the new ideas out there. We are heading towards a time where all forms of marketing have to primarily be useful and also entertaining, if not both. That is FB but much more importantly it's a significant step towards some kind of unifying convergence, especially once it's universally mobile.