A Response To Understanding Facebook

Of course Scoble would link to this and share it! Tony Bierman wrote a post about Scoble not understanding the point of Facebook. I commented on the post, but I wanted to elaborate a little on my own blog because even though I don’t wholeheartedly agree with Bierman, he does have a point in his article.

You see, the fact is Scoble isn’t using Facebook for its intended purpose, which is to bring people with things in common closer together.

Scoble has of things in common with a lot of people. However, I think I understand what Bierman is referring to. Robert and a few others seem to be "friending" in ordering to find things in common, while Scoble promotes himself, amongst other things, to reach a wider audience. I’m not sure if Scoble or the others know if they really do have anything in common until after they’ve become "friends". I was Scoble’s friend on Facebook. Honestly, we don’t have much in common and I never read much of his "noise". So I removed myself to make room for more important people, who also have more in common and more to build a friendship upon. That is one of the points of Facebook; building upon friendships that already exist. That’s also why I don’t advertise my Facebook profile. I reserve it only for people I know, and a handful of people I don’t know personally, but know well enough to add them and invite them into a more private lair of my life. Facebook is a lot more intimate the Scoble seems to notice sometimes. Nevertheless, he’s just using another point of Facebook and that’s promotion! Nothing wrong with that, but stop complaining about the "friends" limit Scoble. Switch to Myspace if you want more.