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“Once a social networking haven for college students, Facebook’s decision to open registration has helped attract new visitors from outside the 18-24 year old age segment. In fact, the 38-percent increase among 18-24 year olds was the lowest rate of growth of the age segments represented in the study. The most dramatic growth occurred among 25-34 year olds (up 181 percent), while 12-17 year olds grew 149 percent and those age 35 and older grew 98 percent.” From: comScore: Measuring the Digital World based on demographics from May 2006 - May 2007

What is Facebook? It’s a social networking system, in which a user creates a page (“profile”) on the Facebook site. Once the profile is created, users can add information about themselves, including contact information and different interests. Users can find friends and colleagues and invite them to link to their pages through “friendship.” Privacy settings help establish how much information can be shared publicly and how much is limited to friends only.

There is more to Facebook than just setting up a profile, however. Pages can be customized to express users’ interests. Tools can be added to make a user’s page more functional. Think of it as a membership directory on steroids. Or as an interactive rolodex. Or a personal website. Or your personal clearinghouse for resources and contacts. Or…[insert favorite way of describing Facebook here].

Here are some ways people and organizations are using Facebook to connect, share, and promote – feel free to suggest others (note: you must be logged in to Facebook to access Facebook links – if you don’t have a Facebook account, find a friend, relative, or colleague who does – think of it as a great opportunity for “over the shoulder learning”):

Networking: Stay in touch with friends and colleagues. Discover other people with similar interests. Join networks based on region, school, work place. Find peers through friends of a friend. Esther Kustanowitz offers her scientific theory on why Facebook is the perfect vehicle for Jews (think Jewish geography) in her UJC GA Plenary presentation, posted on JewTube.

Causes: Create or add an application to highlight a favorite cause (health, education, etc.), raise funds for non-profits, and recruit new people to support efforts. Examples include:
CAJE
Darim Online
Hebrew Free Burial Society
Hillel
Free the 3 Abducted Israeli Soldiers (Gilad Shalit, Ehud Goldwasser, and Eldad Regev)
Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles
Mazon: A Jewish Response to Hunger

Groups: Connect to organizations and special interest groups, like alumni associations and professional interest communities. For example:
Alumni and Friends of the Hebrew University
Center for Leadership Initiatives
I Work(ed) for JESNA
I Work for a Jewish Organization!

Events: Announce events with rsvp capabilities. See, for example, Hanukah, a holiday party around the world, December 4-11, 2007

Here’s how social media guru Tim O’Reilly thinks about social networking:

Some Things I Want From Social Networking
• I want it to reflect my REAL social relationships (mine my phone and email)
• I want it to help me manage those contacts (how to reach them, updated status)
• I want to manage groups of people
• I want it to recognize asymmetry in relationships
• I want fine grained control over what I see and what I ignore
• I want to discover interesting people
From: The Facebook Application Market by Tim O’Reilly, Graphing Social Networks Presentation, October 9, 2007

Learn More:

12 Ways to Use Facebook Professionally, Web Worker Daily, July 24, 2007
Comparing Social Networking to Online Communities by Lee Lefever on CommonCraft, December 7, 2004
The Long, Long Tail of Facebook Causes by James O’Malley and Justin Perkins, July 24, 2007
So Many Facebook Apps, So Little Time by Andy Carvin, September 21, 2007
My Network, My Cause by Alan Krauss, November 12, 2007, New York Times
Top 10 Facebook Applications/ Work, Read/Write Web, July 16, 2007
Top 10 Facebook Applications/ Play, Read/Write Web, July 17, 2007
Top 10 Facebook Applications/ Media, Read/Write Web, July 18, 2007
Top 10 Facebook Applications/ Utility, Read/Write Web, July 19, 2007
Top 10 Facebook Applications/ Extensions, Read/Write Web, July 20, 2007
Why Facebook is the Future by Lev Grossman, August 23, 2007, Time Magazine

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 29th, 2007 at 8:41 pm and is filed under Social Networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.