Leveraging Social Networking Apps

The August 6th issue of Business Week contained an article called: Fogeys Flock to Facebook. The article explores the trend of older users levering existing social networking applications. Facebook, which used to be the domain of college students is now drawing surprising numbers of professionals their 30s and 40s. Among Silicon Valley executives, journalists, and publicists, Facebook has become the place to see and be seen. And it's not just tech. Consulting company Ernst & Young's Facebook network boasts 16,000 members, while Citigroup's claims nearly 8,500.

My own encounter with Facebook happened just a few weeks ago, I had just completed an article on how Web 2.0 is both reflecting and fueling a major shift in culture. The article drips with words like participatory, customizable and creating community. While I was in my e-mail firing the piece to my editor, I received an invite to Facebook from a potential client in Nigeria. As I was feeling rather Web 2.0 fluent at that moment, I decided to sign up and take a few minutes to explore it.

When I looked up at the clock, an hour had flown by without my perceiving the passage of time. In a whooosh upon entering Facebook, I was connected with colleagues, past classmates, old friends, and gurus from my industry. It was a networking event, trip down memory lane, conversation with people I haven't spoken with in awhile and hello ping to people I'm geographically far from.

But what was really impressive wasn't the connection it provided, but the ability to visualize interconnection. Facebook provides a visual picture of social networks and how they connect to each other. In a glance you begin to understand who people are by who they connect with. The other interesting phenomena is that it fuels the already existing trend of the dissolution of walls between personal, professional and social lives. Add to that some very useful tools for mass-communication, event planning and the ability to easily swap posts and visuals, and you have just a few reasons why Facebook is adding 100,000 new users per day.