Facebook is Targeting Your Obsession

Before the Facebook platform was introduced, I knew plenty of people (in fact, I'm probably one of them) who had accounts, but rarely logged on — most people weren't sufficiently compelled by the minute changes in their friends' music taste to check it daily.

But once the platform was introduced, all my friends suddenly started finding reasons they NEEDED to check Facebook constantly (for most of these people, those reasons were Scrabulous). This is why the platform is such a brilliant business model. No matter what your obsession, Facebook can now target it. Not into "poking"? Fine, here's some zombies. Not into zombies? How about political propaganda?

I never got into Scrabulous, but just as Long Tail advocates would predict, I've found an app that targets my obsessive streak. So far I've mostly percieved the platform as an opportunity to crankily delete dozens of invitations from people I've forgotten I ever knew to install apps I would never care about. But the allure of seeing my friends neatly categorized by type and temperament compels me to switch to the other side.

So if we're Facebook friends, you should expect an invitation to add the "personality type" application. And you NEED to accept it.

Vacation and Electro-Sabbath

I just got back from a week with some college friends on a yacht one friend's parents had rented in the Virgin Islands for her college graduation -- which is pretty much as awesome as it sounds. I caught up with old friends, swam with a turtle, learned some sailing, drank piña coladas, and many more adventures.

Another remarkable thing about this trip was that I had no laptop, no cell phone, no blogs, no webcomics, no email, no TV, for a week straight -- a distinctive experience for someone who's accustomed to spending hours tied to a screen every day. When we were first planning this trip, I was worried about being forced to be not working and out of contact with clients for so long, but you know what? It was fantastic. I even uncharacteristically declined the opportunity to check my email when it was available at some places we pulled into port -- and since I'd warned my clients about my vacation plans and worked a little extra the week before, nothing urgent had piled up when I got home.

In some ways, this email-less week was similar to the "Electro-Sabbath" that Jesse and I instituted a few weeks ago: on Wednesday nights after 9pm, we don't check email, use the internet, or watch TV or movies. The idea is to clear our heads from the addictive and attention-fraying 20-open-tabs lifestyle of the everyday and free up time to dedicate to non-electronic activities we want to pursue (reading, painting, chatting, going for walks). It's relaxing to do this once a week, but an entire week without the electronic tether is unbelievably refreshing -- obviously something I can't do often in my profession, but something to keep in mind for the occasional vacation.