Facebook's Power

Futricando no Facebook achei duas comunidades bem legais, que fazem uma espécie de pesquisa sobre  o poder de influência da rede como ferramenta de marketing. 

Uma delas se chama Marketing Psicologico,  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=25097279304  , e é de uma guria que precisava fazer um trabalho pra faculdade, pra cadeira de psico, sobre a influência do marketing viral. Ela simplesmente mandou o convite para todos os seus amigos dizendo exatamente isso, e pedindo para passarem adiante. A meta era atingir 200 000 pessoas em uma semana. Esta meta foi atingida com uma folga de mais de um dia. A brincadeira passou a ser ver até onde ia o negócio e hoje, passados 2 meses do início da comunidade, o número de membros é de 766 502. E isso considerando que ela é uma comunidade invisível, o que significa que não aparece no perfil dos membros, o único jeito de se entrar é sendo convidado por alguém. 

Já a outra comunidade tem a ver com a Teoria dos 6 Degraus,  http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=8900080125   . Essa teoria, de alguém muito famoso que o nome agora me foge a memória, propõe que, contatando apenas 6 pessoas, nós podemos entrar em contato com qualquer outra pessoa neste planeta, seja ele o Papa, o Bush, a Madonna ou o Osama Bin Laden (garanto que tem gente na CIA pagando uns trocados por uns bons contatos, hein!).  A meta era ver se, através da comunidade, era possível entrar em contato com todas as pessoas participantes do Facebook. Infelizmente, isso não tem como ser mensurado, porém, em 6 meses de comunidade, o número de membros já ultrapassa os 4 milhões e meio. 

Na verdade toda essa história fazia parte do plano maligno de um escritor que estava fazendo um livro sobre internet. É meio grande pra traduzir, mas pra quem se interessar fica, em inglês mesmo, o relatório que o cara fez sobre a velocidade de crescimento do número de participantes. Um dos dados é que, em um determinado momemento, a taxa de adesão a comunidade era de 3 PESSOAS POR SEGUNDO, A CADA SEGUNDO!!! 

Segue abaixo.

Beijos e boa semana a todos! 

Six Degrees Of Separation – The Report

Isn’t it amazing how the choices we make can lead us on such unexpected journeys? That’s what happened to me with Six Degrees. I started the group as research for my new novel, The Watcher. One of the themes I explore in the book is the way we are connected via the Internet. Facebook is a kind of Internet-in-miniature, which makes it the ideal place to examine this idea. So, at midday on the 28th November I started up the group, and invited all my friends to join. By the end of that day less than twenty people had joined, and I thought I was going to have to go back to the drawing board. By Day 4 things were looking more promising: we were up to 200 people. It was on Day 5 when things really got going. When I logged on to Facebook I was amazed to discover that the numbers had more than doubled in just twenty-four hours.

A week later, I logged on and, when I saw the numbers had jumped from 3,000 to 30,000, thought my eyes were playing tricks. The following day was our first six figure day – 141,000 new members joined up. The next 16 days were a complete rollercoaster ride. Sixteen six-figure days in a row! This was completely unprecedented! At times we were adding members at a rate of 3 every single second. For six days we were averaging 220,000 new members a day.

Day 13 was a real Red Letter Day. At 02:37 (UK time) we hit our first million. I remember sitting at my computer, hitting the Refresh button every few seconds and watching the numbers climbing ever closer to the magic million. When we finally got there the Wall suddenly flooded with messages of congratulations from all over the world – I hadn’t been the only one playing the Refresh game.

It was around this time I realised Six Degrees was more than just research for my new book. This was a truly international Internet phenomenon! Each day I was getting a load of emails from every corner of the globe. Most people just wanted to tell me how much they enjoyed the group; others had suggestions on how we could improve things. I read every single one... and did my best to reply to them all. I was touched that people took time out of their busy lives to write to me.

Inevitably, there had to be a slowdown. There was no way that we could keep growing at a rate of almost a quarter of a million a day. The slowdown started on Day 18, shortly after we hit two million. Since then there has been a gradual tailing off of the numbers joining. However, like a snowball rolling down a mountain, we’ve had enough momentum to take us past both the three million and the four million mark! Absolutely incredible!

It was never my intention to prove or disprove the Six Degrees theory – after all, I’m a writer not a scientist. I’m happy to accept that we’re all connected, and leave it up to people a lot cleverer than me to argue over the details. The idea behind Six Degrees Of Separation fascinates me – and judging by how many people joined the group, this is a fascination shared by millions of you across the globe.

Have I managed to contact every single person on Facebook? I like to think so, but unfortunately I have no way of knowing that for sure. The fact is that more than four million of you took the time to join, and that is nothing short of a miracle. As progress marches on, the world gets smaller. That’s inevitable. Whether we’re separated by six degrees or ten degrees or one degree isn’t important. What is important is the idea that we are connected.

All the best, 
Steve