Some people are emphatically defensive of Facebook, though, and I’m sorry that FB has become a placeholder for actually spending time with friends. Constant updates by users about unimportant, ultra-banal “events” like, “John is hanging at Blah Blah w/ Blah Blah!” or “Jane just got home. LOL!” does lead me to wonder whether or not many users are making mountains out of their molehill lives. If those people DO have amazing, intricate, fascinating lives, then it isn’t showing…and the best way to HAVE said life is probably to go live it instead of typing about it like everyone is waiting with bated breath to figure out what your trend-setting, ground-breaking self is doing next.

I’m sure lots of people use FB to truly, actually, get together PHYSICALLY, and not just pretend, but being tickled pink about a website that is simply the successor to the MySpace phenomena is kind of silly. MySpace was used for the same reasons people claim to use FB for, and the only difference I see is how it sells itself: “Facebook” sounds like a tool to be used, with possible usefulness, whereas MySpace sounds like a kiddie club, “No adults allowed!”

Example 1
11:30pm the other night I wrote up something about one of our entrepreneur workshops on my blog and “tweeted” a link to it. Within call it 15 minutes I had 1 RSVP (and money in the bank) and had started 2 Skype discussions on the subject.

Social media had become social interaction.

Example 2

I had this argument with one young (21 year old) entrepreneur who said that when he eventually was able to hire staff he wouldn’t need to provide them with offices or anything – they could work off Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Skype etc. and they would be able to build professional relationships and bring in the business he wanted.

I told him he was smoking his socks and in fact if I had to hire staff now for my business I wouldn’t rush to let them use technology at all. My experience (from 4 or 5 young employees) was that given access to Facebook and MSN Chat they simply yapped to their mates all day and brought in nothing.

If I hired somebody know (particularly a young person) I’d have them out at entrepreneur networking sessions, industry events etc where they are talking to real people and building networks face to face.

Don’t get me wrong – technology is absolutely fantastic for doing this, but it is too easy to hide behind a computer screen and write it up as “professional networking” and “social interaction”.

In conclusion:
With the right relationships social media can be used for social networking… but you have to have to have the relationships in place to actually leverage off it.

We like to use social media to spread news about events, where and when they are happening, what happens at them and more. LBS (location based services) are getting real hot – and those allow people, friends, acquaintances, etc to meet up and keep in touch.

I agree that we are getting more and more dependent on technology, but in many ways it is a good thing!