Reconnecting on Facebook: I guess my old friends aren’t plugged in

October 28th, 2007

Recently, I’ve been meddling with the next wave of Googling someone — trying to find them on Facebook. This has been a relatively difficult task, as so many of the people from my college and high school days appear not to be on Facebook. When I looked up the network for my high school, sadly only one person in my year was on it. And, it was even more pathetic for the public middle school I went to — not a soul on Facebook from my graduating year.

College is a little different, but not much. The small liberal arts school I went to has produced no connections, and the large public university requires a valid email address from the school — email didn’t exist as an option when I was in college.

It’s depressing that so few from my past are accessible on Facebook — in many ways, I find it a better way to keep in touch than email. Email has a certain formality almost to it now, and there are more creative ways to be in touch on Facebook. Certainly, I communicate way more with my college-aged nephew on Facebook and IM then email. I don’t think it would happen at all using email.

So, I am stuck not communicating with people I would like to find, but alas, they remain a mystery to me. Back to Googling…

Online Metrics equal more than just clicks

October 24th, 2007

I posted today on Collective Intellect’s blog about an article from Monday’s Wall Street Journal, discussing the metrics problem with online advertising — basically, how it is hard to figure out online measurement because there are a lot of variables, and different vendors measure in different ways. I find it amazing still that measurement is so seemingly arbitrary still, similar to the model by Nielsen to measure advertising online. Online measurement should be easier, because there is a trail of data left behind. However, now there are so many place to measure, it is more complicated.

You can read my post here.