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No, You Cannot Turn Facebook Into A (Decent) MovieAugust 28th, 2008 at 7:30 amSource:Mashable! Do you want to get your business in on Twitter, but you’re not sure where to start? Perhaps you’re in public relations and marketing, but don’t have the resources on staff to really learn all the nuance and detail that’s involved with the community and development concerns with utilizing Twitter to its fullest. If you answered yes, then perhaps you’re in need of the services offered at Cherp, a self described “Twitter Creative Agency.” Is this something that’s really necessary, or even a viable business idea? That’s the question Chris Brogan asks with full sincerity in his post about the company. I certainly don’t blame him. To me, the idea that a firm has completely built itself around the idea of operating in the Twittersphere almost seems like a prank website. It isn’t that it’s impossible, it’s simply a very bleeding edge idea to base a company around. That’s something I know quite a bit about. Contrary to the loud protestations of some, I’ve been an early adopter for a long time, and in the very first days of podcasting tried to build a growth-based business around the idea of podcast hosting. The time had not yet come, and would not come, for podcasting to be widely adopted enough by not just listeners and broadcasters but advertisers to build a growth-based business around the concept. Similarly, it’s obvious that there’s something there with Twitter. There are very real ways to use the tool for a wide variety of professions in ways that can increase their bottom line in terms of marketing or simply increasing efficiency and access to information. The problem is reliability. The system is continually in a state of flux and development, even by the company’s own admission. Until things stabilize not just in terms of uptime but in terms of permanence of features, it’s foolish to build any sort of long term company strategy that relies on the system’s longevity. The landscape is already becoming littered by the carcasses of companies that have been rendered obsolete or non-functional by changes in the API at Twitter. Granted, a creative agency won’t be subject to the whims of arbitrary changes in API limitations, but while I don’t expect Twitter to go away any time soon, it has far from reached critical mass. Basing a company solely around Twitter is a still risky move.
In what seems to be the worst idea in the history of television, West Wing writer Aaron Sorkin has his sight set on Facebook, claiming he’s interested in making a movie about the popular social networking site. He doesn’t understand Facebook, he says to BBC, but he’s ready to learn, thus creating his own Facebook account. It’s not entirely clear whether he wants to create a movie about the creators of Facebook (boring) or the actual users of the service (more boring), but neither sound like a good idea. Well, unless you want to watch developers do their thing for an hour and a half. Or people choosing who they’re going to vampire bite next. Sorkin himself sounds really enthusiastic and full of ideas about the project. “I honestly don’t know how this works, which is why I’m here,” he said. And if you did, Aaron, you wouldn’t be making a movie about it. In other, more interesting news, Facebook’s All Stories feed is now called Live Feed, at least in my account (I’ve switched to the new design a while ago and I love it). Other than the name change, I don’t see any differences between the old and the new version, except for the fact that Facebook altogether has been very shaky in the last couple of days, with chat and various feeds going on and off all the time. —Related Articles at Mashable! - The Social Networking Blog:Flixster Tops 1 Billion Movie RatingsFacebook Controversy: Virginia Tech Halloween Costumes [Video]Facebook War with ConnectU Lives OnApple Movie Rentals On its Way?Mosoto - Now a Stickam for Facebook UsersThe Facebook SongFace the News: Everything You Love And Hate About Facebook
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