Throwback: "Facebook pages are very interesting."

Gary do you would you see that Facebook is one of the most important social networks out there it's the one to if people are going to choose and try to you know not use all these different products and kind of put themselves down like do which context I mean you know obviously when you look at sheer numbers of people on from a business standpoint or from a personal standpoint let's go with both let's go well I think from a personal standpoint that ship is sailed right I mean that's the social network people are on you know ant Sue excuse me great Aunt Sue at her 72 years old is rocking you know Facebook and finding like her you know sweetheart from when she was 5 years old and flying to Oklahoma to like high five him right she needs to com down on the kegstand photo I agree you know it's not even kegstand photos I don't know you know but the fact of the matter is that is that from a business standpoint I think Facebook pages are very interesting you know I think you know Twitter is a great platform it's quick it's got a lot of value but what Facebook pages allows and you know under the Viner media umbrella that I live with my brother we do a lot of Consulting and strategy for Brands it has a lot of flexibility I mean you could build a website on top of a Facebook page I firmly believe that customers are more comfortable with a Facebook URL so if you are a Pepsi or a Ford or the National Hockey League when you're running a commercial or using traditional media and layering social on top of it facebook. com NHL is something consumers are a little bit more comfortable to go to plus you can you know do a lot of things on that platform to interact their social graph so I I would say that Facebook page in a lot of ways for businesses is the most necessity driven page because you can actually do a lot of things you can code on top of it and so uh yeah I think it's a necessity I I think that um Facebook in a lot of ways you know it's tough to say they've won right because if this was years ago and we were sitting here talking about AOL that I would have been like AOL one right and so like I think you got to be careful about those things on the flip side nobody's ever really I had a bunch of friends when the whole privacy thing broke tell me they were going to quit Facebook they like Gary you're into that stuff right you know they were kind of telling me these are like normal friends outside baseball right and I was like yeah and they're like I got to tell you something because maybe you can make one of those silly videos I went to go quit Facebook and on the last page it showed a picture of like my wife and my best friend and my uncle and they said you know seea you know we're sad you're leaving but oh by the way before you leave before you hit that last button and you're leaving Facebook we just want you to know that Grandma an and your best friend John and your wife Sally are going to miss you they photosho here on and so um and they couldn't two separate friends who don't know each other because of the whole privacy thing 6 months ago both let me know that they did not quit Facebook and once you map that social graph there's a lot of interesting things that go on so I think they're a beast yeah what I mean do you think that it's getting to a point where there's kind of what Gary said there's so much noise that it's tough to map that social graph a bit well I think I think it's strange that like Facebook has managed to very cleverly become synonymous with your actual friends like that whole we're going to miss you it's like no you're not you're sitting right here and it's like no on this screen we're going to miss you it's so messed up and I think there that there is actually a strange difference and it's sort of generational as well where people like Gary and I who sort of came into the internet before Facebook see it you know you mentioned like catching up with old friends and like all this idea people who are coming into Facebook now never had the idea of ever losing touch with old friends like to them it is synonymous with their social graph and in fact there are a lot of friends who they've never met and that's what's that's what to me is slightly Strang about Facebook and is potentially really interesting but potentially really damaging to social relationships is this idea that oh because I've like poached them on Facebook this week I've had my interaction quota with them and yet you never lose touch with anyone that's great but actually as someone who did use Facebook to find a bunch of old friends I suddenly didn't actually have that much in common with most of them like having you know having not seen them since school and we but on Facebook it almost doesn't matter as long as they're there and as long as their picture pops up every so often and I click or see a picture of them I feel like oh I know them and I worry that we're going to end up with fewer real meaningful relationships and I mean I don't know 20 years from now we might have just all adjusted and it might be fine but it's it is a bit worrying when you're yeah when you're only interaction with somebody's that little picture so the idea of missing that Avatar is enough to make you stay on something I think the flip side is I don't think we ever had that many meaningful Rel I don't see how in any way Facebook is going to shrink meaningful relationships I think we lived with a pretty small number of meaningful relationships I mean there's dunar numbers and things of that nature I get that but I think when you really look you know I do something very funny when I fly I like to fly with I switch seats sometimes and sit with very old people I feel like they've played the game and I like to like suck you know that knowledge out of them I think I'm just an old soul I think people have very small graphs I think life is kind of pretty basic and I think the one thing for me and listen this comes down to DNA because I'm very different than let's say my dad right very different we're Polar Opposites so I get a good sense of like the other side you know I like people and I like no to me a poke is such balone and I'm with you on the flip side I feel like that's a human

being that I might have had double zero you know Robert Parish like interaction with my whole life and so maybe just that little something means something to me you know when I open the door for somebody and they you know in the city and they walk through if they turn back and give me a smile instead of just walking through that changes the whole complexity of like the way I feel and I just wonder I wonder if that's what's being replicated and some way I'll be honest with you I think this stuff is making it more scalable not less scalable as a lot of people think I actually agree with you except my concern is that the uh and I don't think yeah I don't think it's about having more friends I think it's I think the trouble is does it dilute the interactions you have with those who would be your C friends and do you get to the point where because you have 10,000 people and because you're on Facebook all day you feel like with the charity thing you feel like I've done my bit for socializing today and actually you haven't spoken to another living Soul apart from opening the door for them I think what's really neat about our generation is I've been able to live life enough with and without this stuff that it's interesting for all the social everybody knows me is like H you know like I'm social dude I was insanely not social I was very focused on building my career I didn't go out with my good friends I was hustling it blows my mind how much more social I really am now because of things like Google Calendar and like you know things that can actually manage relationships like somebody hitting me up on my wall a couple times you know squeaky wheel gets you know the grease kind of thing I'm dramatically more social because of it and I think it has an impact