I do not actually know the guy (nor do I know anyone that does) but apparently Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO, is not known for his people skills.
The image you get from reading articles about the young billionaire is best described as ‘unkind’ and ‘anti-social’. His brainchild however (the thing that got him on the Time’s World’s Most influential People list in 2008) is now forcing me to work on my personal growth. (Is that Alanis Morissette I hear in the background?)

Friends of friends
The situation used to be like this. You, mostly, like your friends, which is why they are your friends in the first place. Your friends’ friends however, much like your in-laws, is an entirely different story. Even though there much be some sort of ‘common ground’,there is absolutely no reason why you should particularly like or give a hoot about friends of friends. If you did: they would be considered your friends as well wouldn’t they? Chances are you are a very social person and you can get along nicely with all sorts of people in terms of  ‘chitchat’ and  exchanging superficial niceties for the time being. Not me. I am better described as being a ‘difficult’ person. Although I work hard to keep a friendly face I hate people who, in my personal view are superficial, egotistical, short-sighted or just plain stupid. As will be the case with your friends as well: some of my friends socialize with those people as well.
(note: to my friends that are actually reading this. No, I don’t mean any of your homies…)

Situation 1.0
Back in the old days, before 2.0 that is, the aggravation and annoyance could be kept at acceptable levels.The occasional birthday party was survived by simply avoiding certain people and conversations and if you somehow got stuck with any one of those, it made great gossiping material. The prospect of that would keep me sane. Every once in a while you could also ’skip’ on a social date when you found out ‘they’ were going to be there, should that date occur at a time when you just ‘couldn’t face it’. So everybody was happy. My friends’ friends were still retarded, polluting and selfish pigs and I was still the -secret- intellectual snob. How times change.

Situation 2.0
Now is the age of the online social networks and hey, aren’t they heaps of fun? I cannot remember what I used to do with my spare time before LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook and the mere thought of ever having to do without any of them sends a shiver of fear through my spine. but for all the blessings particularly Facebook has brought me, it’s also confronting me with my second worst nightmare… my friends’ backward friends. See, I like reading what my friends have been up to, seeing what they thought was interesting and listening to what they feel is worthwhile to share with their own circle. But I do not necessarily enjoy reading the comments their friends feel they have to write beneath them. In the best cases they make me laugh and feel superior, in the worst cases they enrage me with their stupidity to the point where I just want to throw my laptop out of the window (I have already mentioned that I am a little, little man haven’t I?). And to add injury to insult, in some cases I have to put up with comments by friends of friends of friends, vague acquaintances of friends, family of friends and colleagues/business contacts of friends as well. Just shoot me.

Becoming a better person
The answer to this problem is quite obvious. I should stop being such a stuck up prick and start (excuse the cliché) practising what I preach and let people who-do-no-harm just be. The alternative -blocking all friends that have annoying friends-  just does not appear to be a viable option. And for the worst cases of  ’short-sighted, superficial, egotistical and plain stupid’, I guess I should learn to have more understanding, patience and respect. Damnit Zuckerberg, my personality used to be just fine!

How did Facebook all started?

Mark Zuckerberg founded Facebook with his college roommates and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskovitz and Chris Hughes while he was a student at Harvard University. The website’s membership was initially limited to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It later expanded further to include any university student, then high school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over.

The Rave of Facebook

Not long, about 3 years ago, Friendster was still like the hottest social networking site locally. I could still remember how we used to tell our friends to write us testimonials on Friendster, comparing how many friends and testimonials we had. But right now, people mention only ‘Hey, I just poked you!’. Apparently, this ‘poke’ application was a hit for Facebook. When everyone first started using Facebook, ‘poking’ was the most common thing that happens almost every other min. The next hit was the games that Facebook offered. Examples of such are Restaurant City, Bejeweled Blitz, Mafia Wars and many more.  In my opinon, these may be like any other games, nothing extraordinary about them, but it’s how Facebook amazingly link friends and games together that made it a hit. Facebook enables friends around the world to play together as teams and challenge each other in games. It beats playing games on your own and challenging lifeless computer. What’s more, you still can keep in contact with your friends across the world.

But this is not all that Facebook can offer today.

Facebook as Social Media

Right now, many companies are using Facebook for customer service, an excellent method in cutting cost and boosting revenue, without having to sacrifice its reputation. 

A light note to share and prove my point. http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporebusinessnews/view/446807/1/.html

Indeed, using Social Media is a smart choice to save cost on printing, employment and etc. But that’s definitely not the main factor in choosing Social Media. These big players see that Social Media is massively reaching out to both potential and unintended audiences. For a fraction of the cost, the audiences reached is probably a million times more? Though there might be unintended audeience, what’s the harm? Wouldn’t it be good too to let them know as well? It could be good and bad pubilcity, but there is still pubility, which is what that matters. As a business player, what will be your call on that? Won’t you greatly accept and hit on this new marketing tool too?

For the last 4 days Facebook seems to have been spending alot of time on “Site Maintenance”. This is the 10th time in the last 4 days that I have gotten this message:

Meet Lauren Luke, a 27 year old single mum from South Shields near Newcastle, UK.

She dropped out of school at 16 and became a teen mum.

In 2007 she started video blogging from her home, when her son was asleep upstairs. Little more than two years later she is an in-demand fashion expert on TV and in print, and has launched her own make-up range. Hell, she’s even been featured in Time Magazine.

All pretty amazing, but not unique.

Lauren’s success story stands out because she is the perfect example of how to turn demand into money: and journalists thinking of  start-ups should get their pens out.

The elusive niche…

“I hope what I do makes people more confident to experiment.”

There’s loads of talk about this right now. ‘Journalism’s future is in niche and hyper-local’ we’re told. And that’s probably true.

But simply having a niche isn’t enough. As with all business, your niche must be in demand.

And Lauren’s niche is certainly that. Unwittingly, she tapped into a massive market of women who wanted practical, accessible help with their make-up. Her videos did just that. Her Youtube channel, Panacea81, has been viewed more than 8,600,000 thousand times, and has nearly 400,000 subscribers.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said recently “build something people want” and Lauren’s a true example of that.

So, if you’re planning a news start-up (and you don’t want it to rely on grants or donations) you need to ask yourself “is there a demand for this?”

…a position of authority…

“I just think there is a standard that is set by the beauty industry that is unobtainable by the vast majority of us normal people who pay for it. We are all entitled to have products that work and bring out the best in us and create looks that we can actually wear”

Lauren can teach us a thing or two about building a position of authority. Does Lauren have a qualification in make-up? No. Has she done make-up for the stars? Nope. Does she even work in a salon? Nope. In fact, when she started the videos,  she was working for a taxi firm.

But this hasn’t stopped her becoming an expert, a person of authority on the subject. It’s one of the great things about the internet age. Career guru Jonathan Fields says that’s tough for some but great for everyone else:

“…for an increasing number of career paths, demonstrable mastery and/or expert positioning regardless of pedigree are the keys to success. That may scare and anger a whole generation of people who came up under a different set of rules, but…this phenomenon spells opportunity.”

So: it’s possible to build yourself into a respected expert, by publishing high quality content.

…extra products…

“The book will feature a range of celebrity looks, everyday looks for the office, as well as casual and bridal looks.”

8 million hits does not necessarily mean money. But Lauren’s business sense shines through again: recognising demand she has turned her knowledge (which she gives away for free) into tangible products. She has published a book, and launched a new make-up line.

For journalism this produces a host of opportunities. You might not sell your content, but can you sell the platform? Release iPhone apps? Run courses? Sell guides? Don’t just think of making money from your words (because you won’t!)

…and ambition.

“I want to make a huge change to the beauty industry”

The final key Lauren clearly possesses is ambition. She was not content with just becoming a youtube star. She wanted to release a make up brand & publish a book. And now she’s got the big players in her sights.

From make-up, to Yoga, to music…it is possible to make a good living doing what you love. Why should journalism be any different?

Facebook, situs jejaring sosial terbesar kedua setelah MySpace, yang membuat penciptanya atau pemiliknya menjadi orang terkaya di dunia ke 321 versi Forbes Magazine dengan total kekayaan sebesar $US 1,5 Milyar atau Rp. 17,4 T. Bahkan seorang editor majalah bernama Matthew Miller mengatakan, “Mark adalah anak muda terkaya di dunia sepanjang sejarah dan hasil itu ia dapatkan karena kerja keras nya, bukan berasal dari WARISAN”. Facebook Creator is Mark Zuckerberg, seorang pemuda yang tinggal di daerah selatan San Francisco, berusia antara 19-22 tahun [tidak ada kepastian, setiap sumber mengatakan hal yang berbeda-beda] pada saat ia pertama kali meluncurkan “The Face Book” khusus bagi komunitas kampus nya, Harvard University. Pada 24 jam pertama, tercatat 1200 mahasiswa Harvard telah menjadi anggota dari “The Face Book”. Sebuah antusiasme yang sangat besar. Sesungguhnya Mark adalah mahasiswa Psikologi, hanya saja ia memang sudah belajar mengenai pemrogramman sejak masih duduk di bangku SMP. Komputer pertama yang ia miliki adalah hadiah dari Ayah nya pada saat ia kelas 6 SD. Nah, bakat programing yang ia miliki digabungkan dengan ilmu psikologi nya, maka lahirlah Facebook. Facebook sendiri sebenarnya adalah nama sebuah buku yang di dalam nya berisi data-data mahasiswa kampus dan dimiliki setiap mahasiswa sehingga mereka dapat lebih mudah untuk berkenalan dan mengingat seseorang melalui wajah nya. Secara singkat, dapat dikatan bahwa Facebook yang sekarang adalah evolusi dari sebuah buku manual dan kini buku tersebut dioperasikan secara Online. Pada saat jumlah anggota Facebook semakin meningkat, akhirnya Mark membuka keanggotaan Facebook untuk umum dan dari situ lah Facebook mulai mendunia. Selain itu, Mark Zuckerberg juga pernah ditugaskan oleh Presiden AS Barack Obama untuk membuat situs barackobama.com. Ternyata kepiawaian Mark dalam hal web-creating telah tersebar diseluruh Amerika hanya dalam waktu singkat. Pada bulan Agustus 2005, Mark secara resmi menamakan perusahaan nya Facebook. Berdasarkan riset yang dilakukan mengenai jumlah pengguna Facebook, US menempati urutan pertama dengan jumlah 89.501.220 user dan Indonesia sendiri menempati urutan ke 7 dengan jumlah 10.833.380 user. Jika ditotal keseluruhan pengguna Facebook, mungkin bisa mencapai jumlah 1/4 manusia yang ada di muka bumi ini. Satu hal mengenai Mark, ia adalah seorang mahasiswa Drop Out. Mungkin hal tersebut ia lakukan karena ia sudah yakin dengan Facebooknya dan memutuskan untuk berhenti kuliah dan menekuni situs jejaring sosial nya yang telah membuatnya menjadi “anak muda terkaya dengan hasil keringat sendiri di dunia”.

Journalism has a lot of hurdles to overcome if it’s to not only survive, but thrive for the next 100 years.

Money is a big one. So is citizen journalism. And yes, the decline of audience and the death of print are pretty massive too.

But the biggest hurdle, the one we must all overcome; the one which will guarantee a great future for news, has nothing to do with ink and paper.

I’m talking about attitude. Journalism is not going anywhere because hardly anyone’s got the right attitude.

And what attitude is that, I hear you cry?

It hasn’t got a name, but we know Mark Zuckerberg and Larry Page have it. And Evan Williams has it to. Jonathan Fields and Jonathan Mead definitely have it. By the looks of things journalists like David Dunkley-Gyimah, Michael Rosenblum and Jeff Jarvis possess it too.

There are some bloggers, like Lisa Williams, Hannah Waldram and Hermione Way who got some.

It’s obvious William Kamkwamba from Malawi is bursting with it.

Important people at the Times, Independent, New York Times, Telegraph, ITN, Sky and the Boston Globe don’t have it, which is why they’ll eventually fail. And across the West, in Britain, the US, Canada and Australia, not enough journalists have it. It’s why we’re getting busy going nowhere.

It can be summed up in truisms like these:

And pretty much boils down to:

It’s the attitude which gets inventors, artists…and yes, even entrepreneurs out of bed in the morning.

And it is the attitude which delivers the key to the future of journalism.

If we’re not careful the future of news, belongs to them, and not the journalists...no wait, hang on. If we ARE careful, it belongs to them. The whole point is we have to stop being careful! Take some  risks, get your hands dirty!

Facebook account: deactivated.

It feels good right now. We’ll see how long it takes me to either kick the habit completely or break down and crawl back into Mark Zuckerberg’s virtual arms — because, as I was so insinuatingly reminded, you can never actually leave Facebook: “Your Facebook account has been deactivated. To reactivate your account, log in using your old login email and password. You will be able to use the site like you used to. We hope you come back soon.” Nothing’s actually gone. Like the hotel in The Shining, once you sell your soul, a part of you will be stuck there forever. Everything will be there just the way you left it. Facebook is full of ghosts: that digital identity will always be there, frozen in time, at least until Facebook goes bankrupt and purges their server farm.

Even without the melodrama, it’s discomforting to know that they have all my personal information — digital souvenirs from five years of my life, all out of my control — just sitting there. It’s a good thing I was never planning on running for office. I can’t imagine it being too long before we start seeing “SENATOR [NAME]‘S CAMPAIGN TORPEDOED BY SORDID FACEBOOK PICS” showing up in the news; journalists, private investigators, and blackmailers are going to be taking that stuff to the bank for years to come — not to mention the marketers who are already fondling over our personal data.

All seriousness aside: how weird is it that Facebook stages a virtual intervention, like some kind of cliche cop-drama crisis negotiator, when you try to deactivate?

"Your friends will miss you."

“Don’t do anything crazy. Think of the people who care about you — your friends, your family. Do you really want this to be the end? You don’t have to do this. Come back here with us. We can fix this.”

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook debuted on the Forbes billionaire list with a $1.5b networth, then dropped off when the economy turned sour.

Was quickly dubbed the next Bill Gates. Apart from the obvious similarities that they both dropped out of Harvard, they both are in the tech sector and they both had been accused of gaining initial success from software codes written by someone else (Microsoft with DOS, and FACEBOOK with ConnectU), they both share a lot more less obvious similarities.

Both Gates & Zuckerberg enjoyed creating computer programs and playing computer games in school. Both Gates & Zuckerberg had professional parents (Gates’ father is a lawyer; Zuckerberg’s father is a dentist). And, Both Gates & Zuckerberg attended exclusive, private secondary schools.

Now Zuckerberg is back on the Forbes list with a $2 billion valuation with his 20% stake of Facebook as the company he founded accepts $200m from a Russian investment group.

With 300 million registered users (and adding millions every month), and the countless hours we spend on the site everday, Facebook’s monetization program might just prove highly successful.

Facebook has already overtaken YouTube as the 3rd most popular site on the web. It hit all the important milestones faster than any company before it. Facebook also launched a new real-time search engine, a clear jab at Google.

Facebook has always been in a position to take a lead in real-time and social search because of the sheer amount of data the site has collected about what people are doing, the things they’re interested in, and what their social graph looks like. Paul Buchheit, the founder of FriendFeed said the human link data at sites like Facebook “could ultimately be more valuable than the link data from the web” that Google’s search engine is based on – someone just needs to mine it.

Zuckerberg, an uber-geek has been described as being ‘oblivious’  and a ‘boy in the bubble’ by the Rolling Stones magazine. Regardless of what has been said, anyone who has met Venture Capitalists luminaries in pyjamas just because he could, and had “I’m CEO, Bitch” written on his business card, commands respects.

One thing that bugs me is the question of “how did Google let this happen (Facebook get away with it)?”. Google a company with the keys to the “library of Alexandria” and the ability to technically render “two Sat-Nav companies worthless” by providing their services FOR FREE. 

If Google couldn’t stop Facebook, who can?

The smart money is already betting that he is the next Bill Gates. History will look back and say: Gates and Microsoft revolutionized the way we use computers whilst Zuckerberg and Facebook revolutionized the way we social network. When Facebook goes public, it will be a big pay day for a lot of Facebook employees.

Can Facebook unseat Google as the new darling of Silicon Valley?

It's sort of like this, only we haven't aged quite so much. And we're not Angelina Jolie.

In a rather short period recently, I have managed to search for and “friend” (thank you, Facebook) hundreds of long lost friends, colleagues, classmates, distant relatives and acquaintances. I guess the correct term would be “re-friend,” since I was at one time actually friendly with these people in the old-fashioned, pre-internet social networking sense of the word.  Since I am only now back in touch with these individuals after not having seen them for many (in some cases more than twenty) years, it seems to me when I see their profile pictures, that they have aged from teenager to middle ager in an instant. It’s not exactly like looking at time lapse photography. It’s more like traveling through a time warp, and it is a very trippy experience. I have taken the express train, not the one making local stops, to my reunion with everyone.

But I am not going to kid myself that having someone’s gravatar (a new term I learned around the same time I started “friending” all my friends) in the “friends” list on my Facebook profile page is tantamount to my being back to having slumber parties and all-night gossip phonefests with them. Some of my “friends” really are my friends (either newly acquired or ones with whom I have been in touch all along without the assistance of Mark Zuckerberg and his gang) at this stage in my life, but for the most part my “friends” constitute what is known these days as my “social and professional network.”

Facebook is the extent of my online social networking right now. But it's good to know I have other options.

Nonetheless, I can’t help but marvel at how technology allows us to reconnect and stay in touch with people over time and space in a way that former generations could never have even dreamed of. When my Zaida and Uncle Noach left Russia and Poland respectively as teenagers, they in effect said goodbye to each other and everyone else they had known there. A few letters may have made their way between them in their new homes in Canada and Israel and the relatives remaining in the Old Country (prior to WWII, but not after), and between the two of them as they built their lives on separate continents. Never would they have fathomed that their children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren could keep abreast in real time of every little detail of one another’s lives. To exactly what degree depends, of course, on how narcissistic and voyeuristic they are.

If Kevin Bacon were Jewish, that number on his t-shirt would be a much lower one.

Facebook’s keeping track for you not only of your “friends” but also the “mutual friends” you share with each of your “friends” is a very handy application. Although I can’t claim to have done any scientific study on this, I do think that it has helped prove beyond any doubt that when it comes to Jewish Geography, there are far fewer degrees of separation than six. It could be that those who cannot claim MOT status, including many people who think they are somehow affiliated with actor Kevin Bacon, do really need quite a few links in the social chain to ultimately connect them to specific others. But we Yids are all one big mishpocheh. The Rabbis weren’t joking when they proclaimed, Kol yisrael arevim zeh la’zeh (all Jews are bound together).

As tempting as it is to knock the oversharing (to understand this term, just read some of Ayelet Waldman’s works and listen to interviews in which she admits to this possible vice) that is a byproduct of the usage of social networking sites, I do have to credit it with enabling me to be present at (in the loosest possible definition) some important milestones for people of whose lives I had lost track. Without pursuing an in-depth correspondence with these individuals, I can at least now wish them “Mazel Tov” on a child’s bar or bat mitzvah, or congratulate them on the completion of a major professional project or the achievement of a personal goal.

English speakers say time flies. For Hebrew speakers, it runs.

I still remember a song my class sang as part of our junior high graduation: Od shanah, ve’od shanah, hazman hu galgal anak (Another year and another year, time is a giant wheel). Close to thirty years later, I have become quite reflective about the passage of time and the cycle of life as I read and see on Facebook that my friends and I now have children of the same age that we ourselves were back when we were truly part of one another’s daily lives. This kind of thing makes me all wistful and nostalgic. On the other hand, doing the math and recognizing that some of my former students are now as old as I was when I taught them (not to mention that some are engaged to be married) just makes me feel old.

We can see from this illustration in Haper's Weekly from 1872 that time didn't fly back then.

In English we say that time flies. In Hebrew, for some reason, time doesn’t fly. It runs. To tell you the truth, I’m not really sure which idiom I like better, or which makes more sense. There’s a saying about time in Hebrew that, unlike others, translates well into English. Hazman oseh et shelo means “Time does its thing.” It certainly does, whether you take this to mean that time heals all wounds or that it just plain does a number on all of us.

As I have my fun socializing in cyberspace, I sometimes think about some old friends who I will never be able to find on Facebook. It’s not because they are technophobic or can’t abide this particular internet site. It’s because they are no longer alive, having died due to accident, illness or suicide. No matter whether it flies or whether it runs, time is indeed precious.

© 2009 Renee Ghert-Zand. All rights reserved.

Facebook On 60 Minutes:

Facebook Etiquette:

Facebook eHarmony parody:

Pernah mendengar situs jaringan pertemanan Friendster? Konon, melalui situs tersebut, banyak orang-orang yang lama tak bersua, bisa kembali bersatu, reunian, dan bahkan berjodoh. Karena itulah, situs pertemanan itu beberapa waktu lalu sempat sangat popular. Karena itu, tak heran jika setelah era suksesnya Friendster, berbagai situs jaringan pertemanan bermunculan. Salah satunya adalah Facebook.

Facebook ini sebenarnya dibuat sebagai situs jaringan pertemanan terbatas pada kalangan kampus pembuatnya, yakni Mark Zuckerberg. Mahasiswa Harvard University tersebut-kala itu-mencoba membuat satu program yang bisa menghubungkan teman-teman satu kampusnya. Karena itulah, nama situs yang digagas oleh Mark adalah Facebook. Nama ini ia ambil dari buku Facebook, yaitu buku yang biasanya berisi daftar anggota komunitas dalam satu kampus. Pada sejumlah college dan sekolah preparatory di Amerika Serikat, buku ini diberikan kepada mahasiswa atau staf fakultas yang baru agar bisa lebih mengenal orang lain di kampus bersangkutan.

Pada sekitar tahun 2004, Mark yang memang hobi mengotak-atik program pembuatan website berhasil menulis kode orisinal Facebook dari kamar asramanya. Untuk membuat situs ini, ia hanya butuh waktu sekitar dua mingguan. Pria kelahiran Mei 1984 itu lantas mengumumkan situsnya dan menarik rekan-rekannya untuk bergabung. Hanya dalam jangka waktu relatif singkat-sekitar dua minggu-Facebook telah mampu menjaring dua per tiga lebih mahasiswa Harvard sebagai anggota tetap.

Mendapati Facebook mampu menjadi magnet yang kuat untuk menarik banyak orang bergabung, ia memutuskan mengikuti jejak seniornya-Bill Gates-memilih drop out untuk menyeriusi situsnya itu. Bersama tiga rekannya-andre McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, dan Chris Hughes-Mark kemudian membuka keanggotaan Facebook untuk umum.

Mark ternyata tak sekadar nekad. Ia punya banyak alasan untuk lebih memilih menyeriusi Facebook. Mark dan rekannya berhasil membuat Facebook jadi situs jaringan pertemanan yang segera melambung namanya, mengikuti tren Friendster yang juga berkembang kala itu. Namun, agar punya nilai lebih, Mark pun mengolah Facebook dengan berbagai fitur tambahan. Dan, sepertinya kelebihan fitur inilah yang membuat Facebook makin digemari. Bayangkan, Ada 9.373 aplikasi yang terbagi dalam 22 kategori yang bisa dipakai untuk menyemarakkan halaman Facebook, mulai chat, game, pesan instan, sampai urusan politik dan berbagai hal lainnya. Hebatnya lagi, sifat keanggotaan situs ini sangat terbuka. Jadi, data yang dibuat tiap orang lebih jelas dibandingkan situs pertemanan lainnya. Hal ini yang membuat orang makin nyaman dengan Facebook untuk mencari teman, baik yang sudah dikenal ataupun mencari kenalan baru di berbagai belahan dunia.

Sejak kemunculan Facebook tahun 2004 silam, anggota terus berkembang pesat. Prosentase kenaikannya melebihi seniornya, Friendster. Situs itu tercatat sudah dikunjungi 60 juta orang dan bahkan Mark Zuckerberg berani menargetkan pada tahun 2008 ini, angka tersebut akan mencapai 200 juta anggota.

Dengan berbagai keunggulan dan jumlah peminat yang luar biasa, Facebook menjadi ‘barang dagangan’ yang sangat laku. Tak heran, raksasa software micr*soft pun tertarik meminangnya. Dan, konon, untuk memiliki saham hanya 1,6 persen saja, micr*soft harus mengeluarkan dana tak kurang dari US$ 240 juta. Ini berarti nilai kapitalisasi saham Facebook bisa mencapai US$15 miliar! Tak heran, Mark kemudian dinobatkan sebagai miliarder termuda dalam sejarah yang memulai dari keringatnya sendiri.

Niat Mark Zuckerberg untuk sekadar‘menyatukan’ komunitas kampusnya dalam sebuah jaringan ternyata berdampak besar. Hal ini telah mengantar pria yang baru berusia 23 tahun ini menjadi miliarder termuda dalam sejarah. Sungguh, kejelian melihat peluang dan niatan baiknya ternyata mampu digabungkan menjadi sebuah nilai tambah yang luar biasa. Ini menjadi contoh bagi kita, bahwa niat baik ditambah perjuangan dan ketekunan dalam menggarap peluang akan melahirkan kesempatan yang dapat mengubah hidup makin bermakna.

TIADA KETEKUNAN YANG TIDAK MEMBAWA HASIL…

Woah! 2 posts in a day! (Please refer to the post below for my thoughts on OKTOLIVE! first episosde ^^)

Well, that day in NCT, we heard the presentation from Sam and Nad about facebook groups and pages. They were talking about how uninteresting it will get, but I beg to differ! I think it is not as bad as they said, at least I did not feel like sleeping at all! Thats quite an achievement, considering the fact that I sleep at horrible timings like…now? XD

Actually I do know about the difference(a little), but the usage is pretty unknown to me. Like, I do not know that pages needs to be official and that groups can be set up by anyone, as long as you are a user of facebook. Now that I know that pages are only considered lawful if they are set up by official managements, somehow, I have more trust in the pages that I have joined (unless I pay them a visit and realise that it is not the official management)

While listening to their presentation, I found an article, which talks about how facebook is going to tighten their privacy policy for their users. –> Here.

Actually, sometimes, I wonder if privacy is really possible on the cyberspace, like what Ping said, the answer is probably no. And it also makes me wonder why people who joined social networking sites and have their profiles everywhere, seek privacy? If they are out to join SOCIAL NETWORKING sites, then what is all the talk about privacy, other than obvious security-related matters, I don’t see the big fuss about having privacy online.

In my opinion, privacy is pretty much self-controlled when it comes to being online. If you have a blog, and you care sooo much about privacy, there are solutions. 1. DONT HAVE THAT BLOG. <– get a book and kick it old school with something called the diary, jot down whatever you think and tuck it nicely in a locker or something. 2. DONT BLOG ABOUT STUFF YOU DEEM PRIVATE. <– isn’t this simple and straightforward? you are your own main gatekeeper.

In conclusion to this privacy matter, I feel that everyone should get connected on social networking sites, instead of worrying about privacy, think about the 1001 benefits it has. I am not a hugeeee lover of facebook, but I sure would like to thank the fact that its existence got me connected with friends that I have already lost contact with. The power of facebook is seriously an eye opener

Oh and fyi, There will be a Facebook movie, titled “Facebook: The Movie”, it is a feature film about Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook. I will be quite attracted to watch this film. Anyone? Check out more about it HERE.

They even found a place to replace Havard University (the place where Facebook started out),m, fiming will take place at Johns Hopkins University. Check out HERE.

I recently started using twitter with an accidental click on captureuniverse tweet section on her blog.

I found out twitter petty simple, boring and developed without much futuristic vision(although i am excited in following Hilary duff and Ashley Tisdale ) .

Hence my thinking was why we Pakistani professionals are not diving more in Entrepreneurship, although recently a Lahore based software company launched mobi2weet, Pakistan’s first SMS- based twitter application and other notable launch is by another Lahore-based Mindstorm Studios who launched world’s most sophisticated Cricket game (PC).

Sticking onto the subject of the post, i came through a list of Top 10 Young Entrepreneurs which can be found here

Top 10 Young Entrepreneurs

For me most notable Entrepreneurs in the list are

Mark Zuckerberg founder of Facebook

and

Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross founder of Mozilla Firefox

both of these applications are/using  Open Source, means cost of the project would not be much as compared to companies like Microsoft, whose products you can only use by purchasing a license.

Anyhow it’s so inspiring to look and read about these top 10 Young Entrepreneurs, who has make a notable invention in Software and IT.

Happy Computing…

How many zillions people in this world so addicted to social networking thingy? A LOT. But here’s what the founder of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg says:

“What it comes down to, for me, is that people want to do what
will make them happy, but in order to understand that, they
really have to understand their world and what is going on
around them.”

in two words: BE AWARE.

always remember that people barely fall because of a huge mountain in front of them but of a small pebble, indeed.

Apparently a film is due to be made about popular social networking site Facebook. I’ve just read online about the film, titled very originally I might add, ‘The Social Network’ and that also Justin Timberlake is starring  as the website’s founding president, Sean Parker. David Fincher, Alien 3, is due to direct filming, which starts shooting next month for a 2010 release. The script has been penned by Aaron Sorkin, whose credits also include the West Wing, Charlie Wilson’s War and The American President. The main role, that of Facebook’s creator and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, is being played by Jesse Eisenberg whose previous credits include Adventureland and Zombieland. Personally, I think the film will be very interesting but then again I thought Rogue Trader would be interesting too. I guess only time will tell. Thanks for reading.

I admit it. Not only do I get my sports updates on FB, but I am guilty of sometimes getting my news there as well.

Just last week, I got the play-by-play of Balloon Boy’s adventures, including his probable altitude and cruising speed, from my Facebook news feed. I also knew from my Facebook friends when he touched down, and I could virtually hear the collective sound of surprise when thousands of people realized there was no one inside! (Which of course begs the question: Is Balloon Boy really Balloon Boy if he was never really on board in the first place?)

I’m not advocating we get all of our news on social networking sites, but it’s a sign of Facebook’s growing influence when information we used to get from other sources is now arriving first via FB status updates.

When Mark Zuckerberg, a Harvard freshman, started Facebook in 2004, it was strictly a way for Harvard students to get to know each other better. In just a few months, Facebook became so wildly popular that other colleges were invited to join, then high school students. In August 2005, Mark began running Facebook as a business and made it available to the rest of us.¹

Facebook now has 300 million users worldwide. That’s an increase of 50 million users in just two months, an astounding rate of growth. Mark Zuckerberg says these numbers underline Facebook’s reputation as “one of the largest properties on the Internet,” with an audience large enough to “encompass almost every man, woman, and child in the United States.” ²

According to Facebook’s September 2009 data, there are now 84,596,240 million Facebook users in the United States alone, a 101% increase from this January! ³

And, if that’s not a compelling enough reason to pay attention, Facebook now has the top market share among social networking sites. Just last year, in September 2008, Facebook had a less-than-20% market share. By September 2009, its market share grew to 60%, making it the number one social networking site. (By comparison, Twitter has less than a 2% market share.)⁴

Still don’t believe Facebook is a force to be reckoned with? The Facebook community is bigger than the population of all but three countries in the world. Right now it is the fourth largest site in the world, behind only Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft.⁵ And if Facebook continues at its current rate of growth, it will be bigger than Google in just two and a half years.⁶

If your business is not on Facebook, it should be. Your customers (and your competitors) are already there.

Here are seven more reasons to get started putting Facebook to work for your business: 

1. Facebook Pages are free and easy to set up. In today’s economy, can any business afford to turn down free marketing?

2. The new Pages format launched in March 2009 gives businesses the same ability to post content that will appear in their fan’s News Feeds — a huge benefit that increases visibility and promotes conversation.

3. The measurement tools on Facebook are a marketer’s dream! View the number of visitors to your business page, the number of subscribers (as well as unsubscribers and resubscribers), the demographics of fans, the number of interactions per week and type of interactions, the quality of posts, and more.

3. Create high-quality content. Facebook Pages now provides the same multi-media functionality and customized tabs previously reserved for individual page owners. Set up tabs for photos, video, discussion, industry-related blogs, customer reviews. You can even direct advertising to different landing pages to measure the success of any given promotion.

4. Third-party applications can be integrated into your Facebook Page to keep users on your page longer. You can add games, quizzes, even let your fans vote on topics of your choosing.⁷

5. Engage your customers in dialogue. Marketing is now a two-way conversation. If you’re not hearing from your customers, chances are they’re talking to a competitor who will listen. Ask questions. Find out what they appreciate about your service and what challenges they face in their business.

6. Facebook Pages have become almost a second home page for many businesses, and Facebook takes the mystery out of Search Engine Optimization. By following a few simple tips when you set up your page, you can increase the odds of your page showing up in a Google search: http://www.insidefacebook.com/2009/07/13/seo-facebook-pages-10-key-strategies/.

7. Finally, you’ll need your own personal Facebook page before you can set up a business page. I highly recommend using this page to build trust. People do business with people they know and like, so use your personal page to let your personality and other interests shine. Sure, go ahead and put business posts on your personal page from time to time, but don’t post business tidbits daily — reserve that for your business page. Instead, mention what that your family is doing this weekend (unless, of course, you’re building a weather balloon as part of an elaborate television hoax). Recommend other products or businesses when they’re really worthwhile. Weigh on the latest football game (even if your team is the underdog) or latest ballot issue, if it matters to you. Even if people don’t agree with you, they’ll see you as transparent and, more important, trustworthy. 

Remember, Facebook doesn’t replace your current sales tools, and, yes, you can still do business the old-fashioned way. Once you decide to Facebook, you’re not giving up traditional marketing — you’re simply doing both. 

Setting up a business persona on Facebook is the fastest, easiest way to increase the buzz about your business. And you won’t need an empty, metallic hot air balloon to do it.

^Notes:
1 http://personalweb.about.com/od/makefriendsonfacebook/a/whatisfacebook_5.htm
² http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2009/sep/15/facebook-300-million
³ http://www.nickburcher.com/2009/09/facebook-usage-statistics-sep-09-huge.html
⁴ http://www.hitwise.com/us/press-center/press-releases/social-networking-sept-09/
⁵ http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/facebook_launches_prototype_crowdsourcing_product.php
⁶ http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2009/08/facebooks-growth-spurt/
⁷ http://www.allfacebook.com/2009/03/facebook-page-strategy/
⁸ http://www.facebook.com/advertising/FacebookPagesProductGuide.pdf

I am sure you have heard it all before. Get yourself a domain name and set up a web site. With the right concept, you will become rich beyond your wildest expectations. You will be jetting around the world and everyone will want face time with you. If you believe that, then I have a bridge in Brooklyn I want to sell you.

You know as well as I do, that it doesn’t really work that way. What I do know is that most successful web entrepreneurs built their sites based on one value proposition and before their very eyes their site morphs once, twice or three times before really gaining traction and beginning to grow virally. So where are you? Plan A, Plan B, or Plan Z? Your concept is important, but if you don’t build a platform that engages your audience, you will never achieve the level of success you expect.

Take Myspace, for example. When Chris DeWolfe bought the domain name Myspace.com in 2002, he initially expected the domain to become a data storage and file sharing site. The founders of Myspace, Chris DeWolfe, Brad Greenspan, Josh Berman and Tom Anderson met at eUniverse where they worked and were all members of Friendster, one of the earliest social networks. When they left eUniverse, the guys decided to strike out on their own and create their own social network similar to Friendster.

To make their social network different, they made a couple of significant changes. They designed the site to allow users to customize their profile pages and they encouraged anonymity by letting their members use any identity they wanted to use. The early version of Myspace initially targeted an 18-35 demographic and emphasized content revolving around indy rock and alternative music. Their connection to music and musicians helped fuel the early growth of the site and is still a primary driver of their traffic today.

By giving users the ability to customize their web pages within the site and upload their own photos, videos and music, Myspace morphed into a more general social networking site. Myspace’s reach began to extend to folks of all ages who wanted to set up their pages any way they wanted. As the site grew virally, their value proposition morphed into something totally different from their original concept of appealing to musicians and music lovers, and the rest as they say, is history. Bottom line, they built a platform that not only engaged their users, but kept them coming back again and again to update their profile pages and see what their friends were posting on their pages.

When Mark Zuckerberg started Facebook, it was originally called Facemash, and his idea was to allow fellow students at Harvard to rank female coeds based on their physical attractiveness. Being a geek, Mr. Zuckerberg was trying to find the hottest coeds on campus and maybe even get a date with one of them. After toying with the original site for a time, Zuckerberg and his roommates determined that they could expand their little network if they changed their site into a campus directory for Harvard.

After recruiting thousands of students at Harvard and validating their new concept, his team then opened Facebook up to other campuses and the site began experiencing exponential growth. The design of the site was such that without purposely intending to do so, it became a social network for everyone, not just college students. The site differed from Myspace in that the users used their real identities and the site was open to application developers that developed apps that the users could use to mess with their friends. It also minimized the banner ads that overwhelm Myspace’s pages. And another accidental internet empire was off and running. Bottom line: build a site that your initial users embrace and they will come.

Neither of these two sites became successful based on the founders’ original target market, value proposition and vision. And they are two of the most successful web sites in the history of the internet. So lesson Number One is: If your site design does not truly engage your users day after day, month after month, and year after year, then regardless of how brilliant your original vision or concept might be, you’ve got nothing.

It is important to understand that you can’t build a successful site based on content alone. Unless you have a very large global staff of extremely talented editors, journalists, copywriters and reporters, your content will not keep your visitors engaged. The best way to keep them engaged is by ensuring that they are the ones generating the content and interacting with the content generated by the others on your site.

By the way, Facebook is overtaking Myspace in unique visitors and members world wide. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp bought Myspace in 2005 for $580M. Chris DeWolfe and Tom Anderson initially stayed on to manage and guide Myspace. However since April of this year they have, for all intents and purposes, given up their active participation in the day to day operations and management of Myspace. Mark Zuckerberg is still the guiding visionary at Facebook and the company remains private. He relocated the company to Silicon Valley and has hired a number of highly qualified executives to manage the day to day operations of Facebook.

When I told my wife I was writing this blog, she asked me why I haven’t created a billion dollar web site…if I knew all the secrets. My response was that we are in the process of enhancing our web opinion portal, www.BoomerOpinion.com, currently and will launch the new site design before the end of the year. And within a year or less, we should be able to put a down payment on my new Ferrari and arrange financing on that Chateau on Lake Como near Milan. Okay, maybe a new corvette and a house on Lake Travis. We wouldn’t want to fritter away our entire fortune the first year would we?

What are your thoughts on this topic? Do you have a different idea about the secrets to building a successful web property? We want to hear about it. Post your comments and tell us what you really think. Stay tuned and next week, I will reveal secret number two in this series.