On a historical day in the history of this nation, much of the talk in the tech blog world was about how Robert Scoble, a prominent tech blogger, lost access to Facebook while testing a beta version of Plaxo pulse, which is a script that will allow you harvest contact information of all your friends to store them elsewhere.  Too see how many other  bloggers beside Scoble that covered the story, just Google “Robert Scoble and Facebook.”  I was really disappointed to find the day of the Iowa primary this was much of the talk in the tech blog world.  The result of this presidential election will affect the future of the Internet will greatly affect the future on the Internet and how technology as a whole will be viewed/used in this country and by the government.  Aside from TechCrunch, none of these other tech bloggers have interviewed any of the dozen of presidential hopefuls on either side of the isle.  If these candidates can pander that to every other constituency in the country to get their vote, why isn’t the geek community, with the exception of the Google, Microsoft and Yahoo of the worlds, also demand the attention of the future president.  Net Neutrality, Identity Theft, Use of voting machines, How to address the technology divide in our public school system, media consolidation, upgrading federal government IT infrastructure are just some of the few issues that the next president will have to address.  Without the bloggers and the rest of the tech world exercising any pressure or forcing the candidates to be better educated about these issues, big tech companies will be only ones to have a say on how these issues unfold.
Moreover, since this election has be dubbed the “technology election”, I would imagine on the day of the first caucus the tech blogging world would be a conversation about creating objective measures that could be used to examine exactly what affect technology will have and has had on the election.  More frustrating than not being able to vote in this election, to no fault of my own, is people squandering the opportunity to bring important issues to the light before it’s too late.  Today’s coverage of “Scoble-Facebook gate” was would be equivalent to something like CNN covering Britney’s latest night of debauchery instead of covering Bhutto’s assassination.

Sorry Scoble but I really don’t care that Facebook banned you for breaking the rules that you agreed to uphold in the first place.

All these Facebook events had me thinking:  Of all the politicians and or non-profits, who can really benefits from the extra exposure on Facebook?  At first glance the answer is easy.  Everyone of them can benefit from additional exposure on Facebook and if you subscribe to the theory that all publicity is good publicity, this is even more true. 

Before discussing who has the most to gain, it is imperative to mention that each organization must first determine its goals on Facebook and  its target audience and their habits.  For example, there is no need to for an organization like National Association of Home Builders to create a presence on Facebook, if their goal is to reach more Builders Members.  On the other hand, I don’t understand why an associations like National Minority AIDS Council or the Red Cross, have yet to take advantage of Facebook groups and Apps to promote their activities (at a local level if need be) and even launch education campaigns about AIDS and blood drives, respectively.

That being said, I think some stand to gain more than others.  In my opinion, the most stand to gain are local politicians and local organizations.  Facebook actions (i.e. signing up for events, following local group, viewing a tagging photos) better translate in the real world if they are kept in the small communities where that people can physically relate to and have to be part of every day.  I have no data to support this but one can only look at LateNightShots in DC and its success to get what the idea.  The site works because it drives people to meet and get together offline.   And they can do this because it’s hyper-local. Whether you agree with what they do  when they meet offline is a subject for another discussion.

While national organizations and national politicians can not benefits as much from the basic Facebook features as their local counterparts, they can rely on Facebook Apps to accomplish the same thing.  The Apps can be used as a tool to allow like minded users be a part of hyper-local community that will allow them then to engage with each other and organization/politician online and offline. 

Basically, a successful utilization of facebook to get a message across would be to create hyper-local groups than whose action and support can translate in the real world

Unless you’ve been living under rock, you are probably aware of the all the hype that Facebook has been receiving. With something like 45 millions users, everyone, from politicians to activist/Non-Profit organizations, has been trying to leverage for their purpose and or cause. The first event I attended focused on how political organizations and candidates can utilize Facebook to reach the masses. The Facebook reps started the presentation with statistics about the site, its users and the potential for growth. The numbers were impressive but nothing that hasn’t been published everywhere on the web. Needless to say, I was really excited about that part of the presentation. In latter part of the presentations made following recommendations to organizations and candidate that wished to tap into Facebook users:

• Form groups and keep the content fresh (i.e. pictures, wall post, notes, and posted items).
• Be candid, transparent, and relevant (i.e. don’t used canned photos only, don’t run everything by legal and PR, talk about Grey’s anatomy…everyone watches it)
• Encourage interaction between group members and have actionable items.
• Build Facebook application using the Facebook Platform when you find limitations in current Facebook functionalities (i.e. Barack Obama app & Causes App).
• Purchase various Facebook advertising package to target a specific audience (i.e. all 22-24 yrs old males living in NY) or to gain wide audience.

Post presentation, they had a Q&A. Again nothing exciting, expect you politician profiles can now have more than 5000 friends, and Groups administrators will soon be able to message more than 1000 people at a time.

The second event, titled Facebook Developer Garage, was held at GW the next day. By the title you can see that it was geared towards geeks like me. There was a bit of an overlap between the presentations. The presenters displayed the same stats from the other conference. I guess they can’t really compile new statistics overnight. During the second part of the presentation, the focus was more on the much touted Facebook Platform. To summarize, their message to developers was “build fast and iterate.” They made the case that the platform is young and full of potential. They, as in Facebook, have not yet identified all the characteristics of a killer app. The best way to discover users’ likes and dislikes is by trial and error, which is what they do themselves at Facebook (…think of backlash when news feed was first introduced). After the presentation from Facebook reps, some local developers came up and demoed their Facebok apps. Each of them talked about the challenges encountered while building their app and fielded some questions. I can not end with out a word of thanks for Jesse Tomas and Nick O’Neill for setting up the second event. It was very ad hock, but successful.

Next post what I learned…

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Facebook Platform, Non-Profits, Web 2.0