Facebook Is Viral Viagra

The infamous blue pill may get things going in the bedroom, but if you want to get things going in Cyberspace it seems all you need is to get some Facetime on Facebook!

I am an avid Twitterer and a good Twitizen, but I don't get too many @sass or D sass messages. I have had a personal blog since 2004, but I rarely get even 1 comment on my posts, despite toiling over every witty and pithy sentence (at least in my mind they are witty and pithy). Yet I put a video on my Facebook profile and lo and behold, I am suddenly "viral." Granted, I put some work into the video production and I "tagged" Chris Brogan, which gave me a jump start with his active following. And now Jeff Pulver was kind enough to link to my video from his well read blog. That said, as I watch the comments grow and add many new found Facebook Friends, I can see just how well the "virality" (that's viral vitality) is built into the Facebook platform... and it really does work. When someone comments on my video it appears in their profile and news feed for all of their friends to be exposed to. If one of their friends then comments, it goes out to their circle... and on and on and on.

In many respects, this is the power of a "closed system" as opposed to the "open" Internet at large. For a "regular guy with a regular blog" like me, posting on this blog is like putting a message in a bottle, tossing it out to sea, and hoping it will drift to shore where someone may notice it and respond. Posting on Facebook is like going around your neighborhood and sticking a flyer in everyone's mailbox. The flyer in the mailbox is much more likely to be read than the message in the bottle!

Thankfully, I am not yet in need of a "virility" boost from the little blue pill, but I will happily enjoy the "virality" boost I have gotten from Facebook!

UPDATE:
(For those of you not in my neighborhood on Facebook, here is the aforementioned video)

Glass With Class (photos by Sass)

Dale Chihuly's art, taken with a Treo 650 Smartphone

The Sass Sons (and dining with an iPhone)

The boys at dinner tonight at California Pizza Kitchen. Clearly, the doofy expressions are proof positive that genetics works and more importantly, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. More specifically, the apple was quite large and hit us all in the head when it fell from the tree!

Speaking of apples, last night Sue and I dined at a quite fancy restaurant, Il Mulino on Collins Avenue. At the cozy table next to us an attractive, expensively dressed young woman sat alone and carefully lay out a Blackberry Pearl and an iPhone before her. She spent her Saturday evening dining alone, alternating between sending text messages on the Pearl and talking on the iPhone. A sign of the times? Remember when dining alone meant a corner table and a good novel? I was dying to lean over and ask her why she needed both the Blackberry and the iPhone... Was it the keyboard? Battery life? Just showing off she could afford to have both? Inquiring minds want to know!