February 8, 2009
By Gülay Birand
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Facebook is my new inbox
I’m finding more and more that I no longer use my Yahoo account to communicate and stay in touch with friends. There’s something about having my entire address book in one place. Each with their active profiles and ever changing profile photos. There is a quality of Facebook which makes it feel more alive and responsive than my silent and for whatever reason distant feeling Yahoo inbox. It just seems so far away and isolated from everyone and everything. It’s as if there is proximity to other people on Facebook that just cannot be achieved elsewhere.
I’m also finding that people tend to reply much quicker to my messages on Facebook than they do via email. I do think it is the proximity factor in Facebook that sets the appropriate response time. Via email responding within a few days may be acceptable however via Facebook it’s a bit more frowned upon. After all, there is so much visibility. Presumably, if one has time to update their status, surely they can respond to a message they received. Also, there is the ease with which one can send and respond to messages. I never have to think of what my friend’s email addresses are or which one I need to send it to. It’s simply a name I need to remember and Facebook takes care of the rest.
I am also fascinated by how people censor their content on Facebook more and more as their friend circle grows. With time, work colleagues, every day friends, close friends and acquaintances all join this circle and blur the lines. But that’s for another post…
Sabrina said on February 9, 2009
I agree. There are certain people who I communicate with – pretty exclusively – through FB. Plus, like you said, it’s much more interactive (with updates, photos, etc.) and is likely current.
Looking forward to your next posting about content. Any thoughts about content segmentation??
Gülay Birand said on February 10, 2009
I think you touched upon an interesting point, Sabrina. I’ll try to address content segmentation and censoring of content in another post. They are quite closely linked within this context.