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Believing the Hype: The Facebook Phenomenon |
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Dr. Samuel Says -
Arts & Science
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Written by Dr. Samuel Centralia, Ph.D., D.D.S., Esq.
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Friday, 18 April 2008 |
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It's becoming clear that, in the unknowable Darwinian system that determines the survival of social networking sites, Facebook is now the planet's dominant species. Friendster pioneered the genre, MySpace and LinkedIn are certainly competitive predators, but Facebook currently reigns supreme in terms of pure pop culture ubiquity. I could go on, but my metaphors are already dangerously mixed.
 I was an early proponent of Friendster, and remember being frankly awed
by its potential when it hit its peak circa 2003. MySpace soon eclipsed
Friendster, which has since gone on to be particularly successful in
Asia, for some reason. MySpace I simply refuse to participate in,
because of certain wildly prejudicial feelings about its graphic design.
(Seriously, how can something so aesthetically offensive be so
massively popular? There's a Nickelback joke in here somewhere, I
know…)
Recently, I've been besieged by friend requests via Facebook, and have
hence become virtually reacquainted with dozens of childhood friends,
university colleagues, old students and teachers, and even several
adversaries from the former Soviet bloc. (We just held a
teleconferenced reunion of core participants in the infamous Kiev
Jambalaya Incident of 1988. A story for another time…)
What's remarkable is how great a return I've enjoyed from such a small
investment. I set up my Facebook page about six months ago, on a lark,
and at the urging of the Hip Young People here at Dyscern World HQ.
Those five minutes at the keyboard have earned me more renewed
friendships and professional contacts than my previous five years of
googling around and firing shot-in-the-dark emails out into the Matrix.
After so many years on the Information Age beat, I'm fairly immune to
hype. The Internet's next "killer app" has come and gone so many times
I lost count a decade ago. But with Facebook, I'm fast becoming a
genuinely, embarrassingly earnest believer. Facebook has somehow
managed to hit the cultural sweet spot of digital social networking,
and it grows in influence with every new user that signs up. I realize,
of course, that there are several other conversations here --
Facebook's fairy-tale valuation, its privacy policies, and the ongoing
question of whether it can actually Make Money on a scale proportionate
to its pop cultural success.
But who cares? Facebook's estimated market valuation, according to the
latest buzzmongers: $15 billion. Old girlfriends "friending" you out of the
blue? Priceless.
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