[LINK] Largest Facebook group in Australia?

[Jan Whitaker]

At 12:13 PM 7/01/2009, Jon Seymour wrote:
>I think mailing lists and twitter remain much better community building
>mechanisms because they actually do the whole social engagement thing a
>whole lot better.

Glad to see Steve is still reading Link. Hi, Steve.

The point Jon raises goes back to the old 'push' versus 'pull' 
debate. Is it better to be in someone's face [push] or rely on them 
to visit a netspace intentional [pull]. I find the systems with both 
approaches available to be the best and gives the choice to the members.

I'm old school myself, pre-web, so email is my preferred way. I get a 
copy to keep. I can selectively quote. I can keep a copy of what I 
send out directly on my own controlled computer. PLUS I get the email 
directly in my face without having to remember to go look. I find 
blogs problematic in that way if the comment threads don't provide an 
email  replies component. Sometimes that can become overwhelming, so 
if the topic looses interest for me, I unsubscribe.

The 'communities', like egroups on yahoo, provide an archive plus 
other info sharing tools that are valuable.

I'm not a facebook or myspace participant. I don't know what tools 
are provided there. But I suspect that if email is available, unless 
members are advised of the benefits, they don't use them. Therefore 
the 'pull' factor needs to be higher. But then again, I'm a boomer, 
not a gen-XYZ, so I may just not 'get it'.

Jan



Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit at janwhitaker.com
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