techPresident - social networking - Comments

Glad to spark such a lively discussion!

Colin Delany — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:41:56 -0400

There have been some excellent comments over at e.politics as well -- I gathered 'em into a new piece yesterday.

Colin Delany
e.politics
http://www.epolitics.com

online leads to offline

Joshua Levy — Tue, 06 May 2008 15:28:00 -0400

Colin and Nancy aren't talking about opposite ideas. If organizers are only looking to create action in the context of Facebook then, as Colin suggests, there isn't much data pointing to success. But in her article Nancy describes examples of activism originating on Facebook but quickly moving beyond it, towards other online sources and, more importantly, offline.

Seen this way, Facebook can be seen as successful or not depending on your goals. If the goal is list-building and fundraising, it hasn't proven itself much. But if the goal is group-building, that can happen amazingly quickly. The lists and money come later, after a movement is built and it transitions from a Facebook phenomenon to something independent of the platform.

That's a Very Large Brush

Nancy Scola — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:41:40 -0400

Thought-provoking post, Colin. But as the author of a recent article called "Despite Negative Press, Facebook Is a Powerful Agent for Social Change," I will suggest some caveats -- namely that not every political action is, thankfully, a candidate looking for money or an established non-profit building its email list. The three cases I mention in that article are how the relatively tiny group Students for a Free Tibet have used Facebook to organize around the Beijing Olympics, how one Canadian university student used Facebook to draw widespread attention to Burmese monks' Saffron Revolution, and how within the span of just one month a few Colombian professionals used Facebook to pull together global anti-guerilla rallies on the very same day.

As a political tool, Facebook is flawed. In fact, you can fairly easily make a convincing argument that it's fatally flawed. But it's tough to argue with the millions of boots it has put on the ground in circumstances where the political actors have no expectation of every otherwise achieving those goals so cheaply or easily. For me, it's about teasing agency and action out of networks were before it might have just withered away. And should Facebook fade away or get locked up so tightly as to be useless, then that's just incentive for some clever folks to figure out how to draw those connection and tap that energy even more effectively.

I'd offer you the idea that when we talk about the potential of any technology as a political tool -- whether its Facebook or SMS or what have you -- it's important to keep in mind just what kind of political action we're covering with our critique.

Whoa?

gibson_stevens — Tue, 06 May 2008 10:37:16 -0400

Interesting post, but wrong. No one has yet really invested in a well-thought-out strategy yet. The features of Facebook are limited, but the application platform is much less inhibited. And yet, Obama and Clinton have made minimal investments of time and energy in their applications, and McCain's is nowhere to be found. Non-presidential apps by major political groups, organizations, etc., have been few and far between.

To consider the value of 20+ million US users connected via Facebook a dead end at this point is premature.

Full disclosure: I helped produce Clinton's Hillary Gifts - what I expect(ed?) to be the beginning of a longer-term investment...

More of my musings...

Amen

Patrick Ruffini — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:43:10 -0400

Facebook works when you use it for what it was intended for: spreading messages organically through first-hand connections.

The 1,200 limit on group messaging is alone enough to kill off its potential for mass communication. My own experience suggests that clickthroughs from a Facebook message can match or exceed email response rates. But since it can't scale, you'll only see its potential reached at the state level or lower. A Congressional candidate who can get 500 core supporters in his or her Facebook group (not Page) can hit the activism sweet spot, with the ability to use the group to simultaneously engage users, message to them as though it were email, and use the popular Events feature to get them out doing stuff in the real world.

And Pages are just a joke since messages don't reach the inbox and you have to jump through 3-4 hoops just to read them.

I can't say I blame Facebook for these limits either, given pervasive application spam. Lots of people would be empowered to build their own mini-MoveOns with the ability to message everyone in their group -- that's how powerful Facebook *could* be (the Million Against Hillary group alone would be bigger than most advocacy groups could ever hope to be). But since it cuts against the grain of building trust through individual user networks, we won't see it happen.

You busted me

Colin Delany — Tue, 06 May 2008 00:15:16 -0400

Eric, you are as always a most perceptive observer. I did indeed extend the "jump the shark" metaphor beyond its original, Wikipedia-sanctioned meaning of the moment when a successful pop culture phenomenon goes flat. But I'm a writer; I get to do things like that. Heh!

Colin Delany
e.politics
http://www.epolitics.com

A far more sober view of social networks............

Freedomfighter — Mon, 05 May 2008 23:14:05 -0400

This article is pretty, but could use more supporting factors. Here are some serious problems with Facebook and social networks:

1) Dominated by the under 25 crowd. Because of the aqe cut off, young people are cut off from older and more experienced people and activists.

2) The "me too" syndrome and "save the world syndrome". People tend to join groups to support their own thoughts and engage the idea of saving the world, instead of engaging in debater or taking practical action. As of now, things like Facebook suffer a bubble syndrome. Everyone knows Obama is king on Facebook, but what happens in the general election?

3) Engaging other media. So far, social networks ride on free publicity on the internet and news stories. If a social network gets serious, it will have multimedia advertising trying to broaden its network and attract more advertising.

Jumped The Shark?

EricFrenchman — Mon, 05 May 2008 22:58:04 -0400

Colin,

As someone who actually watched Fonzie jump the shark when it was first aired, it implies success prior to the actual shark and then some amount of failure afterwards. I'm not sure if jumping the shark can be applied to Facebook as a successful political tool. :-)

Eric

Great points

benrattray — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:06:09 -0400

Hey Colin,

Great points. One thing I would elaborate upon is that one of the big problems with Facebook in general (and political apps in particular) is that even if people like political apps, it's impossible for them to get distribution without having a viral coefficient of at least 1 (meaning each new user who joins recruits an average of at least 1 additional user).

This is a significant structural impediment that prevents quality applications that are not specifically structured for viral distribution from reaching any real audience. I've actually just written extended commentary about this that Andrew Chen posted on his blog here: http://andrewchen.typepad.com/andrew_chens_blog/2008/05/facebook-apps-w.....

I didn't write it specifically about political apps (rather, about Facebook's structural bias against "useful" apps in general), but it applies to them as well.

Hello from London

Rob Blackie — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 03:53:49 -0400

As a long time reader of TechPresident it would be good to catch up with you guys at the conference - I'll be one of the blokes with spiky hair. In the corporate world this normally puts me in a group of one - I suspect that at an internet conference it will make me part of a slightly larger group!

All the best,

Rob.

power of a network

conservstudent — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:54:04 -0500

The power of a network will far surpass that of a simple email list... always. The thing you don't get with an email list is investment. With a social network, people will invest themselves in it, nobody cares about an email list.

The candidates don't even need to build a social network, they can just use existing ones. Social networks are the future.

***
http://republican.konnects.com

network building isn't that hard

Dan Ancona — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:50:52 -0500

You just have to invest in the right toolset up front. Obama did exactly that; I can't understand the conventional wisdom saying that Ron Paul is the only people-powered candidate this cycle. Obama's just the first people-powered candidate to have a network that's getting big enough that it's starting to maybe (BIG maybe actually) translate into actual votes. It's going to be an interesting 3 1/2 weeks.

Yes and #2...

gibson_stevens — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 08:33:25 -0500

The network is part of the story, but the conversation is another. Lists of people aren't enough. Homegrown networks aren't enough either. Candidates must engage in the conversation to cut through and grab attention. Think about what interaction / communication / persuasion is outside the reach of the campaign? Certainly more than what is inside...

More of my musings...

Yes, and

Micah L. Sifry — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 21:57:25 -0500

Colin--

Yes, it's big network and big list. Oh, and by the way, a strong message and a strong messenger.

I just don't see much in the way of Clinton's organizing network, other than the pre-Internet networks she and Bill have, plus the unions. Neither of which reach young people.

Micah

How many people are on Obama's list?

Colin Delany — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:51:24 -0500

Micah--

Without know how big Barack's email list is, drawing a conclusion this strong is suspect -- you can't separate out your variables. At worst, I bet he doesn't have many fewer list members than Hillary does, and if he has 500,000 donors (essentially all of whom end up on his list), he's likely to have MORE people on his email list than she does. If you have hard numbers about email subscribers from his campaign, I'd like to see them.

Basically, I think you're drawing a misleading distinction -- the best thing is to have both a big list AND a big network. It isn't network vs. top-down, it's network AND top-down -- just as a campaign has both grassroots activists AND television commercials. Without encouragement from the top (the people who provided the networking tools in the first place), it's hard for a candidate-support network to form and thrive (if it were easy, we'd have lot of Ron Paul/Howard Dean candidates running around, and we don't). For example, a good question to ask is how many started those blogs and those fundraising campaigns because they received an email encouraging them to do so.

Colin Delany
e.politics
http://www.epolitics.com