Facebook Lists and Google Plus Circles

This week Facebook unveiled an improved version of their "Friend Lists." In Google parlance, this is the same as "Circles." Facebook obviously felt they needed to respond to the warm reception Google Plus received with their Circles.

While Facebook did make significant improvements to how you manage your Lists, it's still not as visual or elegant as Google Plus's Circles. With Circles, you can drag-and-drop your friends right into various categories. And while hovering over the icon of any Google Plus friend, you can assign them to Circles right away -- a very elegant management system.

Facebook does, however, hold the edge in automating the way friend management works. Facebook makes use of the way you interact with Facebook to suggest various friends into different categories (close friends, acquaintances, etc.). They call this method "Smart Lists." It's great in theory, but the people I interact with most on Facebook aren't always my friends, per se. With Circles, assigning friends is still a manual process. I'm not saying that one is better the other -- it will come down to a personal choice. If you're the type of person who wants total control over your friend management, then Circles is for you. If you want help with the process, then go with Lists.

A downside to using the new version of Lists, however, is that most Facebook users will be doing this after the fact. You'll need to spend a few hours going through your hundreds of Facebook friends to add them to one List or another. At least with Circles, the platform was new, so it was easier to add friends to Circles as you were adding then to Google Plus.

I'll continue to use both, but I'd like to see Facebook eventually get more of a visual or drag-and-drop interface.

Facebook Page Commenting Changes

Within the next couple of weeks, Facebook will be announcing changes to how their Facebook Pages work, specifically when it comes to commenting. Currently, Page administrators have the ability to disable comments to Wall posts, photos, and videos. Certain companies have taken advantage of this, since they work in highly regulated industries and would find it difficult to deal with open comments from the Facebook communit

Two industries in particular -- pharmaceutical and financial services -- are regulated by various government entities that mandate the ways in which they must deal with information from the general public. Those "charged" topics can include: financial advice, stock recommendations, adverse (drug) events, off-label use of drugs, etc. In the world of pharma, for example, when these topics are discovered online, it is incumbent upon the drug maker to report that to the FDA (based on certain criteria). On a pharmaceutical company's Facebook Page, they lock down that conversation by disabling commenting on the Page's Wall posts, photos, and videos.

Facebook will be changing their policy when it comes to disabling comments. At some point, possibly as early as mid-June, Facebook will be opening up comments on all pharma Pages with the exceptions of:

• Pages that promote, talk about, or support prescription drugs or devices
• Pages that focus on a disease state where there is only one prescribed treatment (even if the Page doesn't mention the treatment)
• Disease-state/therapeutic area Pages that have the PI/ISI on the Page

This means that corporate Pages, general disease awareness Pages, and unbranded campaign Pages will have their comments re-enabled for their Walls, photos, and videos. Other details of this change are detailed in the below presentation.

Facebook to Open Page Commenting

View more presentations from WCG

Diesel Dressing Room Camera

Okay, it's not as scandalous as the headline may seem. Nothing perverted going on here. Diesel is taking advantage of the "haul videos" rage, where consumers videotape themselves trying on clothing, accessories, etc. to ask for their friends' opinions.

Diesel stores in Spain have installed Diesel Cams in their fitting rooms so that customers can take pictures of themselves trying on clothes and instantly post it to Facebook. I actually thought of this idea a couple of months ago, but I couldn't crack the 'creepy factor' of having a camera in a fitting room. Putting the camera not right in the dressing room (obviously) was the solution. Nicely done, Diesel.

They can hope that this instant feedback from customers' friends will help with upselling or will invite customers to try on even more clothes to get even more opinions. This will be an interesting model to watch.

Let me know if anyone has tried one of these out.

Teens Don't Tweet

It turns out that despite the buzz-building power that Twitter yields for things like Twilight, Miley Cyrus, and the Grammys, only 8% of teens are using Twitter. For a generation which has grown up digital, this is surprisingly low.

But it seems that teens --  the ones embracing texting and Facebook -- are not interested in being public. The online tools they do use let them stay connected but primarily within their own personal circles. This is consistent with a study last year that showed 85% of college freshmen had never used Twitter.

In related news, Facebook’s meteoric rise doesn’t seem to be slowing any time soon. It has just surpassed AOL as the 4th largest Web property in the world. With 469 million unique visitors in December, Facebook is on pace to surpass the #3 spot, Yahoo, within a year. And this from a company that has yet to offer an IPO.

Keep the Social in Social Media

As I get further and further engrossed in social media, I find that more of the little parts of my day are being taken up with Twitter updates, LinkedIn invitations, blog reading, Ning-checking, e-mail purging, Facebook friending, and every other sort of phrase that would have sounded strange ten years ago.

What I've discovered is that all of this has eaten into what I used to consider the "gaps" in my day -- my commute, TV commercial breaks, family functions, bathroom trips (sad, I know). What I'm realizing is that those little moments are the ones I'm now missing. Walking through Manhattan during my commute, I used to relish taking in the sights, sounds, and the general people-appreciation that went along with life in New York City. Now, that time is being taken up with podcasts, e-mail checking, texting, etc. In a moment of cognition while walking the streets of New York, I stopped to notice how many people walking by were on their cell phones. It was about half ... half!

Saddest of all, I feel I'm starting to miss out on the super-important parts of my life that, on the surface, may seem routine: my kids, my wife, church, friends -- the real connections that define and nurture me. That's why I'm making a renewed commitment to them, starting now. I see my children growing up so quickly and think, "I can remember when each of them could fit in my one arm." That time is gone ... forever. It only exists in my memories now. I can't risk losing out on present and future memories of my family that I'll carry with me to my grave.

The way I see it, at the end of my days, will I define the worth of my life by the time I spent with my family or by the number of Facebook friends I have?