The Facebook Debate – some thoughts

As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to be able to attend the Facebook Debate and had a great time for several reasons which I wasn’t expecting.

There’s not much I can add to the many reviews of the debate itself, so, in a fit of madness sanity, I am going to abbreviate it all…bear with me, I’m not used to being concise…

1) Hugh MacLeod is an awesome guy and it was great to meet him finally.

2) Damien Mulley and Robin Blandford are two guys as clever as they are great company to be in.

3) Despite it being the third largest network on Facebook, there are a lot of UK marketeers with a lot to learn.

4) Monetising Facebook was barely touched-on but is a massive can of worms (more on that later in the week).

5) Facebook is simply another platform within which we talk about social objects. We just talk using different tools on Facebook.

6) The more utility users get from Facebook, the less susceptible to advertising they will become – idiot advertisers/app developers beware

7) If it took opening the developer platform to bring Facebook up to myspace’s size (in the UK at least), what else is up its sleeve now that myspace and bebo are opening up their doors too?

There is a definite corporate networking opportunity – people do business with people.

9) There NEEDS to be another conference looking at the monetisation of Facebook.

10) I was the ONE person in the room who DID land a job because of Facebook!

That’s my thoughts on the debate itself, but here are some wider thoughts that came from listening, watching and talking to a lot of people:

1) There are a vast amount of people out there who have no idea what Facebook is.
2) There are almost as many people out there who want to do something with Facebook but don’t know why.
3) There are quite a lot of people out there who understand Facebook and want to do something with it, but don’t know what.
4) There are loads of people people out there who are already doing something with Facebook and don’t know why.
5) There are a few people out there who are already doing something with Facebook and don’t know what to do now they have started.
6) There are a tiny amount of people out there who are already doing something on Facebook and actually understand why and what to do with it all.
7) KMP are on the right track – we are using sound business thinking when approaching all matters "Web 2.0". Phew.

There.

Done…other than to say, well done and thanks to the host, Paul Walsh of the BIMA who organised the event. The UK, as Facebook’s 3rd largest audience needs to understand more and hopefully this event will be the trigger for more.

Tags: facebook debate, facebook, bima, paul walsh