valleylist Monday 11.03.2008 v 43.0
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- – the facebook book report
“Facebook The Missing Manual” is published by O’Reilly Press and is a very effective guide to the somewhat confusing world of “facebook” and internet social groups as well. My difficulty was in coming up with a way to really get some value out of my facebook project and “The Missing Manual” provides a lot of insight into what facebook offers from a internet point of view. The focus is on what the internet pages look like and the features and applications that facebook makes available to their members. My complaint is that facebook needs to do more for their members because they litterally making a fortune from the membership concept. “The Missing Manual” claims that it’s a 50 million member internet social group worth $15 billion. Members could benefit from a lot of great features, easier ways of finding connections, free promotions like sponsor freebies and great internet discounts from other leading internet companies. However why Mark Zuckerberg is not having a weekly live member interactive meeting is a big puzzle because like a lot of the big picture people in silicon valley he really is a big draw for the service.
Here’s a lot of suggestions from “Facebook The Missing Manual” published by O’Reilly.
1. objectives
sponsored group
include as many people as possible
market “valleylist”
- – end user generated content
- – sponsors
- – subscribers newsgroups syndication news
- - revenue of any kind
make friends
2. general comments
facebook could do a lot more for its members. there’s a confusing bunch of pages that resemble each other and the most important thing to remember is that people who look you up get your “profile” page. so it is very important to complete all the steps needed to make the profile page effective and attractive. this includes
- – load your photo or graphic image [i have a great avatar that i use]
- – customize the profile to display what you want for instance
– - load the “fun wall” application instead of sticking with the standard wall provided
– - no blog feature just remove it
- - no im [instant messaging] feature just remove it
– - the “notes” area can be customized to include an rss feature which is where
“valleylist” news feed is displayed
– - decide which information you wish to have private and complete registration process
– - add your resume [the more information you provide the more facebook
matches you up with interesting people who went to the same school or company]
– - create a group [groups are among the most interesting features of facebook]
also very important to join as many groups as possible
[i joined the college and graduate school groups and paris la sorbonne
and a few others]
– - join as many networks as possible [there are 29,000 people in the silicon valley
regional network to start with] join school, work and employer networks however you
need to obtain a school or work email that facebook can verify
3. interacting with people
facebook claims to be all about people and the focus is on connecting with people. they require honest responses to registrations questions because they are interested in people connecting with real people instead of the common internet problem of all the information being false.
- – invite a lot of people to join your program
- – search for people who have an interest in your activities
[my situation it's who is interested in silicon valley]
- – old friends and co-workers classmates family members
- – find people who have a common interest
[my situation it's publishing and newspaper people]
- – people like to post something new every day on “the wall”
which is a very popular facebook feature
4. information from facebook [facebook provides a ton of information about people]
- – newsfeeds – - what other people are doing [homepage]
- - mini feeds – - what you’re doing [profile page]
- – notifications – - something involving you happened on facebook [email and feeds]
- – notes – - facebook newsgroup
– - import information services and interesting news [separate page]
- - controlling what facebook displays is very important [i decided to lessen mini feeds and
notifications and increase notes and emails]
5. non essential features
- – events – - of minimal interest
- – shopping – - of minimal interest
- – job search – - of minimal interest
- – collaborating – - of minimal interest
6. marketing and advertising
- – polls - - of minimal interest
- – “pages” great free advertising and promotional vehicle
- – social ads – - very targetted ad to members that appear in ads or feeds
[where facebook makes a lot of money]
- – beacon – - lots of tracking of member activity [where facebook makes a lot of money]
- – sponsored stories – - very targetted large format version of social ads
- – sponsored groups – - unlimited membership, customized features, lots of ads
7. conclusion
facebook is the premier internet social group
there’s a very confusing situation where most of the facebook pages look the same
facebook needs to do as much as possible for their members
make sure you define your objectives because you can waste a lot of time messing around
