Why do I feel like I am one of few who are really excited about Facebook enabling comments on mini feed items? The second I found out, (not only did I twitter about it, but also) I turned around and shared the exciting news with a couple coworkers. My exclamation was met with some mild accord.
Overall it seems like my excitement level is a bit above the average in the social mediasphere right now. Maybe my fellow social mediaphiles think this is just old news (latching on to the functionality of FriendFeed and Plurk) or maybe they think it won't have any significant impact.
Well, here's why I think this is actually really interesting (albeit obvious):
Obviously, this is a natural move. Social media is all about engaging with people and enabling a bi-directional conversation as this does, so it makes sense, of course. But here's the difference between FriendFeed/Plurk/the plethora of other new social media / conversation tools vs. Facebook - Facebook's user base. DUH, right? Well the thing about Facebook's user base is that (1) it's huge, and (2) it includes a lot of people who, I would say, probably don't consider themselves "social media types".
(1) Facebook's huge. So what? Well, that means theres 1000x the number of conversations going on and way more people to interact with. I myself have many more connections on Facebook than I do on any other social networking site. This in itself encourages me to participate. It's not so much the technology but my connections that play a key role here.
(2) Crazy girl, Facebook is a social networking site, what do you mean its users aren't "social media types"? I consider myself a social media newbie (despite my years blogging, on facebook, and all the other sites I tried out) and a lot of my friends - though we grew up in this age of new media - are even less engaged in the social media world (what? blogs?), but they are on Facebook. I think for a lot of these types, sites like FriendFeed and Plurk are (not only unknown to many but also) overwhelming. With Facebook, we've been there from the beginning (my school's network was added in 2004 when I was a college sophmore and I immediately signed up). We're already comfortable with the technology and to add on this new level of engagement is much more manageable and natural than, say, signing up for Plurk and trying to connect with new people.
So I think, in this way, Facebook will continue to engage its user base and also draw in people who otherwise don't engage in social media much. Well, I guess we'll see. Hey, this could very possibly flop too.
Oh - and one last note: Facebook needs to allow the commenting straight from the homepage / news feed page. That's what everyone sees when they first log in, and you shouldn't have to click into someone's profile to leave a comment on the feed item you see right there. Let's really facilitate some conversation here.
