Friday, December 07, 2007 | By: Patrick

Facebook Group

I've been asked a few times if I'd consider creating and/or becoming part of what would be the "official" speculative fiction Facebook Group. Though it's a neat idea, running this blog takes too much of my time as it is. Understandably, there's no way I can find the time to create yet another online SFF venue.

From what I've been told, people would like a Facebook Group that would allow readers to get all the SFF scoops and all that jazz. Since it's what I'm doing with the Hotlist, I have a feeling that some folks want to drive me out of business!:p

The idea certainly has merit, especially when one considers that most speculative fiction readers don't necessarily frequent message boards, etc, yet many of them likely have a Facebook account (as do I). Hence, such a venue could perhaps bring even more SFF fans together. But my fear is that it could also become just a place where bloggers pimp their stuff and little else. . .

Though I can't possibly be a front man for such a project, I wouldn't mind working "behind the scenes" to help the group see the light. So if anyone has any ideas they believe would be good, feel free to share them with the rest of us.:-)

Let's see if we can make this become a reality. . .

8 commentaires:

Neth said...

Aren't there already about 100 groups on Facebook trying to do that?

I've got a facebook acount as well, but I think I'm just a few years too old for this to really appeal to me. All these social networking sites don't mean that much to me.

10:55 AM
TK42ONE said...

Ditto what Neth said. I think I'm a bit too old (and introverted) for the social networking sites to work for me.

And I would think it would be hard to carve another niche for yourself on the web. Not sure what kind of traffic you'd get on Facebook, but I don't think it would be as much as here on Blogger.

11:00 AM
Patrick said...

Ken: There are probably more than that. Which, I guess, is why some folks want to bring everyone together or something like that.

tk42one: I have absolutely no intention to carve another niche for myself. God knows the Hotlist is enough for me! I think it's more about reaching out to readers who are not really into message boards, blogs, sites, etc.

As I said, I have no intention of being the front man for any such project. But if it looks good, I wouldn't mind pimping it to give the group some exposure...

11:32 AM
Gabriele C. said...

I third that.

It will take a lot more time to keep unwanted comments out of your site there than with Blogger. That networking thing tends to get down to a personal level - I've had some fun with my old LJ account about 'why did you defriend me, I hate you' stuff just because I deleted some journals from my reading list after they shifted to topics I'm not interested in. I do that with my blogroll all the time and no one notices. And LJ isn't half as bad as MySpace (and probably Facebook as well).

11:41 AM
Betsy said...

I know I've got my WordPress blog feeding over to my Facebook profile - I'd be surprised if blogger doesn't have a similar feature, and if you don't want to have it run through your personal profile you could set up a Hotlist profile that people could friend to get the latest info there if they don't want to sub to the RSS or LJ feeds, or go to the actual website.

I just searched for one of their widget application things and it was crazy easy to set up - if you wanted to partially oblige them by running the Hotlist over on Facebook.

12:08 PM
Anrake said...

yeah, you're right about Facebook, but I still want you to get a Librarything.com account and someday link up all your reviews to the books there too!!

LT is kind of a nice social networking site specifically for bibliophiles too. I sometimes find good recommendations in the discussions and plug Malazan when I can ;) You can find others with similar "libraries" or similar "favorite authors" and follow through their libraries & recommendations for even more ideas, esp. for older stuff I haven't read yet.

3:17 PM
Ed S. said...

I'm with Neth and tk42one - a Facebook group hug doesn't interest me. Besides, I like the individuality of the existing blog sites. I can bookmark and regularly visit the sites that I like and avoid those that I don't like.

But since you seem to have boundless energy and are obviously looking for new projects to take on, how about posting audio recordings of your reviews so I don't have to wear my eyes down reading words, and how about a email flash whenever something new gets posted containing a summary and how about a monthly magazine with artwork and extras and how about Pat's Fantasy Hotlist t-shirts and how about .....

4:00 PM
Tia Nevitt said...

I'm with Neth on this one. I don't have a Facebook account and I deleted my MySpace account. I have shifted my online socializing to almost entirely blog-only, except for occasional visits to Absolute Write and Fantasy BookSpot.

9:43 AM

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