How Robert Scoble Hijacked My Facebook News Feed from Dare was a fascinating read, on how even when he wanted less Scoble in his feeds, he still got him. Dare later says in comments that it might have been a glitch. But I was with Joshua Allen that Scoble is working Facebook, doing lots of different things which means he gets lots more opportunities to show up.
Indeed, when I came into Facebook, there he was. Videos, photowalking, joining groups.
Thinking about it, if I were really into being seen on Facebook, I’d follow his lead. I’d create an event like “Eating Breakfast This Morning, August 12″ and join it. That would get my name out to all my Facebook friends and keep me seen.
I’d start a group — Sleeping In On Saturdays — and join that. I’d post a photo a day, do a note on anything — do all types of different things to keep myself out there.
Cool — gotta do it! Well, some downsides. First, do it too much, and you’re going to perhaps lose some of that audience (friends?) that you’ve grown.
Second, all the Facebook equity that you’ve built remains with Facebook. For example, if I’m your friend, you might have gotten a note that I’ve uploaded treehouse photos.
If I did that on Flickr (hey, I DID do that), I’d be leaving a URL to drive you to my site, with my domain, which I own.
Facebook don’t do no URLs! Maybe I’m missing something, but I put a URL in my description in my album, it doesn’t go live. If I do it with HTML code, it doesn’t go live.
Interestingly, Facebook happily gives me a URL to make my album public to even those who aren’t Facebook. But that just means I drive Facebook my traffic with no home of getting it back to a place I control, as you can with Flickr.
So if I’m happy building up my Facebook visibility by sleeping around with different apps, to keep myself in front of my network but not enough to make them drop me, good stuff. Good stuff assuming Facebook stays hot, and I have time to do it both here and on the web. Maybe you’re gambling correctly, Robert. Then again, maybe you’re going to be like someone who was all involved an AOL and later said dude, who moved my forum?
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I’ve noticed also that ‘sharing/posting’ Flickr URLs prompts special behaviour. No matter what you put in the title or description box, Facebook reverts to the default description extolling the virtues of Flickr – instead of the photo! That’s gotta be a special deal between Flickr/Yahoo and Facebook – I don’t see it happen with any other shared URLs.
I now use the Flickr Photos app… though it has its own issues.
As for Scoble, I’ve had to take the drastic step of putting him in my ‘less about these friends’ list… which basically makes his content pull instead of push – since I now have to go to his profile to see what he’s up to.
Nice line about AOL. Everyone seems to forget that social networks are like dance clubs in their popularity of the month flighty nature.
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