Do we really need a Facebook magazine?
I’ve been travelling around the country this weekend, visiting relatives, and as I browsed the magazines at Nottingham station on my way back to London today I noticed something strange. A magazine devoted entirely to Facebook. With a few minutes to spare before my train, I picked up the magazine. It offers a “complete guide to social networking” and includes things like a step-by-step guide of setting up a profile and famous Facebookers.
I have to admit to being a little baffled by this magazine. I wasn’t quite sure who it was aimed at and why they might buy it. Social networking and online communities are a very different sort of media, they allow you to do old things in new ways and to do completely new things. They also change rapidly. Facebook, for instance, has changed a lot over the last few weeks and changes to security and processes are ongoing.
Print, by it’s very nature, is out-of-date when it is published. There is a time-delay between composing a piece and it being in the hands of a reader. Social networks and web 2.0 reduces this time-delay to near-zero. So how, then, could a magazine be a useful source of information and help on a social network like Facebook?
I really am at a loss.
Some more reading
- Which Social Portal Will Be Yours?
- Communities = more than the sum of their social media parts
- Social Ad Networks: Win, Lose, or Draw?
- 10 Family-Friendly Social Networking Sites for You
Katie Harris:
Hi Matt
Was this the one?
18 August 2008, 2:55 amhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/dec/06/facebook.pressandpublishing?gusrc=rss&feed=media
It does seem very odd! Odd from the idea right through to the execution (eg there doesn’t seem to be an associated website. You would think…).
Cheers
Katie
Matt:
Hi Katie,
Yes, that was the one! I didn’t go as far as buy a copy sadly so only got to flick through it for a few moments.
The lack of website really tells is all. As does the fact that there were a whole bunch of copies still in the shop, despite it being there since December according to this article.
Matt
18 August 2008, 9:19 amJon:
People will pick up a magazine like that out of curiosity, but I’m not sure what kind of value it really offers. It is true that content from the web doesn’t translate that well to the magazine format, because magazines have such a long cycle and shelf life. However, we could think of this as an experiment to see how people will pick up a Facebook magazine, and then how many of those same people would follow such a magazine back to the digital format–such as a magazine website or e-zine format. And, with e-paper being developed, there may yet be a day when we will see the magazine/computer hybrid where you will open up a magazine that has interactive pages and constantly updating content. Or, just imagine buying a magazine-like device which connects to the Internet, downloads the contents of a magazine, and automatically paginates the photos, text, and ads so that you can flip through it like a real, traditional magazine.
22 August 2008, 1:44 amFreshNetworks Blog » Blog Archive » How social media and web 2.0 allow real choice:
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3 September 2008, 4:15 pm