Facebook is free. Additionally, as a part of web 2.0, it is in a real sense ‘permanently broken’ or incomplete. Nobody really knows what we’re doing, and so things change and adapt quickly. However, a real question arises  – if it is true that for instance Facebook will be launching a gmail clone – will people begin to actually rely on it for vital communications? If this is so, what will a fairly moderate interface change mean? Given that people on the web are about as vocal every day as strikers are on the day of the ‘general strike’, can a service like Facebook ignore comments? What are they to do if a change removes key functionality (such as in this case, viewing updates from a specific application or status updates alone)?

It can easily be argued that Facebook is free, and therefore, you pay for what you get. But Facebook itself does not have that attitude; that’s a ‘screw you’ attitude that they’d never be caught uttering. Therefore we can assume that despite being free (on the front end, anyhow) Facebook wants to give its users the best experience possible, as though they were being paid for all of this. (They are, but not directly by us.)

What is interesting in all of this is that when I spoke to Ron, he mentioned that his iPhone app still had the same functionality. In other words, the same Facebook ‘data’ is sitting there, there is just a new ‘terminal’ we who are using the Web need to use. It makes me think that going forward we will see Facebook clients, much the way we see clients for Twitter. The difference is of course that Facebook is many times more complex! Imagine though, if you could get a Facebook client for 1.99 – Facebook gets a cut of that – over a possible group of 400 million folks?

And what about how widely used (and despised?) it is… I am reminded of everyone carping about Microsoft whenever they try to change something. Difference is, we have to accept the change on Facebook. With Microsoft at least there is a few years for us to adapt. And yet we keep using it!

Free, rich communication is valuable; just like a very generic & flexible operating system is. Maybe Facebook will give up trying to play nice and annoy us until we pay to stop the annoyance. I’ll bet they won’t lose people – where else will they go? Twitter?

Or maybe the value is like that of a huge fan page – everyone is there! How can you take credit for that?

Wikipedia says,

Social media are primarily Internet- and mobile-based tools for sharing and discussing information among human beings. The term most often refers to activities that integrate technology, telecommunications and social interaction, and the construction of words, pictures, videos and audio.

That’s pretty much it. Social media services let us share information using the internet. Unlike a blog (like this) or email, they are a common place – a website usually – where discussion takes place. Sort of like those Roman forums. (Unsurprisingly, one of the earliest social media services, which is still around, is called a forum.)

Now, most services focus around being able to communicate quickly, and to be able to get a ‘community’ view of everyone you’re connected to. That is, you will be able to see a summary of what your friends have been saying or doing. All services nowadays have privacy settings that allow things you do to be restricted or even private. Many services also double as publishing tools, allowing your updates or posts to be viewable and searchable across the web.

I’ve used a number of these in my day, and they vary greatly in popularity and in features. Some that are around now include Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Bebo, Plaxo, LinkedIn, Identi.ca, Plurk, Hi5!, Mashable, Orkut, Friendster and quite many more. (For a list of popular social networks, this is a good place to look.) Some sites that weren’t social networks became so over time (Flickr, YouTube) and there are even aggregation services (FriendFeed, Ping.fm) that allow you to send or see posts or updates from different social networks in one place.

As for actual daily usage, there aren’t great statistics yet, but there are in almost all cases dedicated users of all of these networks. How do you figure out what network to get on? Usually you get invited by a friend. Because, that’s why you’re on there – to communicate. Services like facebook and orkut offer ‘groups’ which represent common interests among their users, and even more you can create ‘events’ and send invitations through the service. Usually you get updates of your choosing through email, because perhaps you don’t log in all the time.

The thing that is most interesting to us, and even as customers of others, is the ability to express interests. Sometimes you come to a web site and you see a banner ad – maybe it’s for computer servers. But whatever it is, it is rarely something you’re looking for or even interested in. Most of what annoys us about ads – junk mail is all about this – is that it is all about stuff we don’t want or couldn’t care less about. However, with the ability to express interest in things either by writing out a series of interests or by making one’s self a ‘fan’ of different products or businesses or people – it allows advertisers themselves to stop wasting time on people who don’t want their product anyway. And believe me, never seeing another ad for male enhancement (at least until I’m 60) sounds good indeed.

Mostly what’s in it for all of us is connectedness. Plus, for us men out there, something that automatically reminds you when somebody’s birthday is coming up saves us a lot of trouble. (Now if it could only remind us of anniverseries.) I don’t know that they are the center of our political and social life (yet) but they certainly have shown themselves to be anything but a fad.

The only question that remains at the end of the day is, which ones will stand the test of time? Recent news suggests that the social media trend is lasting, but some services are going to either be changing or disappearing for good.

What’s my favorite service? Easy, compadre: it’s Twitter, hands-down. Ron’s a big fan, too.

Have a great holiday, folks.