For those who would like to follow along with the notes (there won’t be any slideshow for this one) you can download the PDF here.

So in an attempt to cram it into a nutshell for my upcoming audience, I was comparing and contrasting the ways in which the two networks build connections. The starting point for a connection can often be quite revealing about what sorts of conversations will be able to emerge as mutual participation and engagement ensues. If I meet someone in the context of  being “a friend of the family”, I am likely to explore radically different topics of discussion than if I met the same person in the context of “having the same interests”.

Facebook’s primary connection mode seems designed to bring together people who already know each other, or are very likely to know one another in an existing relational context, whether past or present. A slightly secondary mode is the locale-centric one, in which Facebook seeks to center activity and connections based on the reported location of its members. Both modes suppose an existing geographic or sociographic connection in order for the system to perform well in suggesting friends. And indeed, many if not most of the prompts and activities around which Facebook revolves suppose that the connections occurring within networks have some real-world mirror or context.  Nowhere is this more clear than in the memes and recurring quizzes, etc. that get passed around. Without already knowing something of the individuals participating in these activites, the answers and the exercises themselves would be of little interest, consequence or value to the group.

Twitter, on the other hand, with fewer guided activity options (and subsequently a LOT of general confusion about what Twitter really is) can be much like Facebook, in terms of mirroring confined and pre-existing real-world social connection graphs, but it isn’t designed to limit or promote only those social spheres. In fact, Twitter seems to be harder to use in that way than Facebook, because of the lack of recommendations and six-degrees-of-separation sort of ready-made connections. To find people to follow on Twitter, or to find followers, one would typically start with an interest or subject matter that mattered in their world. With little in the way of formal introduction or pre-existing awareness of an individual, connections can be made, based on little else than a mutual appreciation of a topic, interest or body of knowledge. In this way, Twitter tolerates more anonymity during interactions in the network, and thus can be an appealing place to be a genuine and transparent brand with a valuable voice in the conversations already occurring there. One does not have to know much about someone before choosing to follow them, because the value of the connection is not based on felt associations, but rather based upon a knowledge transaction.

In other words, Facebook networks are based upon WHO you know, and Twitter networks are based upon WHAT you know.

I am thrilled to have finally come up with a “10 words or less” comparison/explanation of the two services. But probably no more thrilled than my audience will be.

But it is because of the fast and wide-scale adoption of these platforms and technologies that we have a full and healthy dose of the Law of Unintended Consequences operating today. For every new break-away service that comes into the light, there are a crop of parallel (and some would say “parasitic”) technologies that emerge alongside. Given the popular trend of public data APIs, this sideline innovation is often where the bleeding edge is found, much to the chagrin of the original technologies’ founders.

I’ll give you a few examples of the unintended consequences I am talking about.

1. Search. Platforms like Twitter are poised to benefit from an emerging view about the data being batted about on any given day in the social web. Turns out that this data is valuable, and once it was made searchable and discoverable, it shines as a plausible replacement to search giant Google as an even more real-time search engine. Who would’ve thunk it? Certainly not the tops at Twitter, at least not from the beginning, and I’d bet money on that.
2. Marketing. Facebook knows something about the data it has in its system. It’s a freakin’ gold mine. And if it can ever transition the unrealistic expectations of its user base to accept a business model that allows Facebook to sell more of this data (anonymous or otherwise) Facebook will be worth triple the inflated numbers that were bandied about several months ago. Marketers are standing by with very long extension cords, just waiting for Facebook to tell them where the high-voltage power receptacles will be located. Because marketers instinctively understand that knowing what Facebook already knows about its users, based solely on their organic and voluntary use of the platform, will likely fuel a global economic recovery. But if Facebook had realized the full value to marketers from the start, I think they would have laid some ground rules that would have made it much easier to do business without sparking user-generated revolt.
3. CRM. How would you like to find out what people are saying about your brand, and quickly respond before an influential rogue micro-blogger can do real damage? The social web is already changing the way businesses manage customer relationships. But I am positive that blogs and microblogging platforms were not conceived out of that desire. It’s another beneficial yet unintended consequence, and it has incredible value to those interested in harvesting the data.

The real party-pooper in the above scenarios is the user and his/her expectations about the social web and the platforms that prop it up.  For now, the social web remains a Fortress of Free, and the expectation that the user-added data in these public systems will remain private and untargeted (ridiculous notions, by the way) are so strong that any wholesale moves toward marketing the vast data sets are met with rigid and unwavering protest. Yet another unintended consequence of making everything free from the start…

As a small business person, opportunity has always been found in the places where there is real need. In our case, those needs have centered on companies who are branding and creating marketing messages in various digital forms. We are so proud to have worked with such a great client roster during the past year, and hopefully met some pressing needs in web design, print design motion graphics design and video production. Thank you all for making last year such a fun one for us!

As a feeble thank you, here are 9 Low Cost Opportunities for Your Business in 2009.

1. Determine the stress points of your customers, and develop legitimate marketing that positions your product or service as the immediate relief they seek. Acute economic stress can become a great motivator to solve a nagging problem.  Do you know what your product or service addresses in today’s buying climate?
2. Down time during the first quarter? There is no better time to revisit your web site strategy and make sure it is really working for you. Some of our clients saw exponential growth occur in their business, simply by optimizing a few pages of text for search engines, or adding intelligent, descriptive video!
3. Take advantage of the holes in your market left by competitors who couldn’t weather the recession. Many competitors are thankful when a business offers to step up and take over a client roster, to support their orphans instead of leaving them in a lurch.
4. Position yourself as an expert in your market. Write articles. Take speaking engagements. BLOG! Much of the “getting to know and trust you” phase of new client development can be taken care of in this way.
5. Twitter. Share valuable links to solid, relevant information aimed at people in your marketplace.
6. Organize a small social event for people  in your client list who need to know each other.  Ask them to invite some of their best customers as well.
7. Revamp your business card. It’s an inexpensive move that can have a transformative effect on your first impressions.
8. Start a podcast to cover industry news, or tips and tricks, Q & A, how-to.  Offer the audio in a player on your site as well as a downloadable, and get your feed listed in a dozen or more podcast directories where people often look for information related to your area of expertise.
9. Has the economic news spooked your customers and made them overly price sensitive?  Find ways to redefine your value in terms that make sense to them in this light.  An example: KFC started a video commercial campaign that more or less dared people to try to cook a 7 piece dinner with two sides for less than could be had in their stores.  No one was paying attention to the fact that it used to be an 8 peice deal for the same price, because the focus became the value of the deal they were offering, compared to the time and expense of making it yourself.

Well, from the team at Harkins Creative, we sincerely wish you a prosperous New Year full of ripe opportunities! Let us know how we can help.

1) An immediately accessible line on my Today Page, where I could text my Tweet and get it live with no hassle, just like Twit Today (bravo on this, Dale Lane!)

2) A compact yet beautiful stream browser with avatars, an easy way to @ someone’s specific Tweet, and even integrate with TwitPic, like ceTwit, although the UI on that one needs a sprucing, imho.

3) The familiar “Older” button from the Twitter site, for going back in the stream a ways. Of all the apps I tested, NONE had this, and I cannot imagine that it would be that hard to do.

For mobile use, this is about all I really want. Account management, follow/unfollow, etc. is not all that important to me.

Thanks in advance!

(Update: I just found pocketwit and it has pretty much THE BEST interface design of all of them I found. Avatars, twitpic support with access to camera and image browser, GPS updating. And a Sa-weeet kinetic interface! Kudos and thanks!)

Harkins Creative produced a site intro video for Planet2025.tv. 18 months later, it is still being used on the home page of their site, and today we received notice that it had just been announced as a Panda Awards finalist in the Wildscreen Film Festival! Final judging will take place in October.

Below is the video entered into the New Media category:

Many opinions, both FOR and AGAINST video comments, have run amok over the past few weeks. I have already said I like the idea, and despite what the SEO pundits say, I think they CAN be a good strategy for getting your site noticed.

But what interests me even more is the clear divide emerging between those that feel that the web is destined to be a multimedia playground, and those that would rather keep it text-based, at least when it comes to the “tried and true” activities of blogging, forums and wikis (as if they’ve been around long enough to be called ingrained!).

The web is supposed to do things. Commenting, by its interactive nature, fulfills the promise of new media, but to say that video commenting misses the boat is a little disingenuous, if you ask me.

Much has been said on this subject elsewhere, but I’d like to look at the emerging culture of participatory content in light of its impact on business communications. Actually I just want to dream out loud for a few minutes about what it would be like to find a company willing to take the chance on ditching their carefully controlled, canned brand experience, and give their own consumers, clients and customers a real opportunity to participate. To participate in the creation of the brand, not just in the canned homogenized experience the brand proffers.

What would that look like? Just wipe the slate clean of decades of brand management, and ask the world to develop the new campaign from scratch. En masse. Without a single top-down directive or offhand suggestion in sight.

But ask yourself, which is inherently more risky, spending millions building a brand experience that relatively few people embrace, or letting the intended market itself tell you and others how they prefer to experience things?