Friday, April 3, 2009

Facebook the new Wal-Mart?


Is Facebook the new Walmart? This question recently posed by MSN Money. [Article is worth the read] MSN says Facebook is taking out other popular Internet services like, MySpace, Classmates.com, Google (messenger), Yahoo (messenger), Microsoft's MSN (messenger) and even goes as far as taking out services such as Evite.com. With the ability to email, instant message, read news, create invites and connect with people with common interest who needs anything else?

"The idea of linking people with common interests into online communities is as old as the Internet. But lately, social networking has exploded. Ratings company Nielsen recently reported that time spent on social networks and blogging sites had grown by 63% last December compared with a year before. Three of four adults in the U.S. now participate."

This article hit really close to home with... mainly because I was bashing Facebook as a service a few hours before I read this. The problem I have with face book is its audience. When I join a social network I don't want to join a network with the "most users". I want to join a network with users that share common interest with me. From what I have experienced Facebook users are heavily college based... and as the article reads "is attracting and older audience".

This forced me to take a step back and ponder on "what is my audience".
My audience is the youthful, the creative, the inspired, and the talented. Facebook does not offer something for these personalities. A hefty reason why I appreciate MySpace more than Facebook is the customization... the ability to make "your space" your own. Having, an individual look, and visual presence is important to me as an artist. Facebook strips you of the ability to express you self visually. As a film maker and graphic designer I want to share my image, my visuals, and my ocular presence with my, audience, piers and with my self. Facebook does not offer what I want as an ARTIST.

I recently had a conversation with a friend about people that consider them self's "Artist". He had stated that persons considering them self's "Artist" are pretentious. I had to agree with him to a certain extent. To consider your art more important or meaningful than something of a lesser caliber, i.e. a carpenter or painter, is pretentious. I do respond with this tho. Isn't that the point of art? To push the envelope to raise the bar to depart from the norm? To create something new, a renaissance?

I fell that in order to progress as an artist you need to be pushed... you must be shown that you are not the best, you have to see multiple forms of art, you need to be constantly inspired by other forms, let it be a painting lending to a film or a film lending to music... and the list and combination go on. You need a muse and Facebook is clearly not for me.

Facebook is NOT for ARTIST

Facebook is for the PUBLIC

My thoughts... I promised never to go personal but... this just rubbed me the wrong way... FACEBOOK IS WALMART...

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