Not yet anyway. This video talks about why people like Jason Calacanis and Shoemoney are now all of a sudden trying to build emails lists. Is it because they didn’t before, or because they’re just trying to be different? I don’t know.

It all just seems a little silly to me. Again, I’m not saying email is dead, yet. I do think my kinds won’t have email. My niece in college doesn’t “email”, only Facebook. What’s your take?

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Yep, you can do marketing in Facebook, according to Shama Hyder from Afterthelaunch.com. I always thought that marketing in Facebook was simply buying some Facebook flyers (like Google Adsense), but Shama told me that that was a very small part of it.

We talked about how businesses should and could be marketing inside Facebook and how to track results and all kinds of things. If you’re at all interested in learning how to start marketing in Facebook you should listen to this podcast. Don’t forget to download Shama’s free guide here about how to promote your business for free on Facebook.

Show notes:

What is Facebook marketing?
What is the first thing I need to do to get started?
Key components to Facebook marketing
Facebook is like a coffee shop
How do I track results?
Why should I spend money in Facebook over traditional media spending?
Social media works better for service companies than products.
Can I do it myself? How much time is required?

It seems Mark Cuban and I have something else in common. Neither of us want to use Facebook to “socialize”.

I met Mark Cuban when I introduced him at the Blog World Expo in the fall of 2007. Video below. Am I his Facebook friend? I think so. I remember adding him after that because he was asking people to connect with him, so I did.

Do I want to socialize with Mark Cuban? Not really, and I’m guessing from this post that he doesn’t want to really socialize with me either. I like to know him, and contact him, but I don’t feel the need to send him personal notes.

See, according to Mark, I’m in his “Power Layer”.

These are people who in whatever industry they are in , retain some level of power. Having them as FB friends, although very simple and non committal, gives me some level of access to them, and them to me. These are people that if they sent me a FB mail, i would certainly read and respond to , and I think they would do the same.

Now, I’m not “powerful”. But I am influential in my niche, so that’s that I think he means about “power”. I’ve interacted with Mark several times in the past via email, not by phone yet, and I certainly don’t feel he’s my “close friend”. So I get what he’s saying here.

This is the exact same view I have with Facebook. I use it as a big fancy contact database that allows me to stay connected with people I “may” need to get in touch with every once in a while.

He also describes the “power level” friend as the “one shot layer” of friends…

Its what I could also call the one shot layer. If you have an idea or thought, you get 1 shot, per year to get their attention. Anything more than that probably could and would get me deleted. Everyone at this layer gets pitched continuously. Myself included. If you abuse it, you lose it.

Right. I get that, and I’m glad he admits that, no b-s’ing around. I have many things I’d like to talk to Mark about in terms of my businesses. I’d like to ask him to invest in some of my ideas. I’d like to ask his advice about business ideas I have.

But I don’t.

I get that for someone like him (as famous as him), to EXPECT that from him is silly. I have his email, and I can also send him Facebook messages, but I don’t, and I won’t.

Mark gets Facebook like I get Facebook.

My 19-year-old niece babysat my children last Friday night. She’s a Kent State (that’s a college) student who lives in a sorority in a “quad” with 4 other girls in one room.

Every time I see her, I take the opportunity to talk to her about social media, and all things “new and hip”, etc… Heck, I have to, I’m a 36-year-old Internet geek. I see a lot of new tech online, but it’s obvious I’m not the core target for new stuff. I don’t “get” a lot of it.

Why do I have these conversations with her? Because I want get it straight from the horse’s mouth about what is new and hot and how she and her friends interact with things like Facebook and Twitter. Here’s a surmised recap of my conversation with her.

Me: So are you still using Facebook?
Niece: OMG, yes, about 5 times a day at least.

Me: You mean you log in 5 times a day?
Niece: At least. Me and all my roommates are on Facebook all day, and night. Constantly.

Me: Doing what?
Niece: I don’t know. Just updating, and socializing. Looking at pictures, leaving messages?

Me: Really? (Genuinely surprised)
Niece: Oh yeah. It’s our life beside classes.

Me: Ok, you login, and what exactly do you do? Because I login and I’m out of there in 2 minutes. I don’t know what to do.
Niece: We just send each other pictures and stuff, and chat and leave messages. It’s socializing.

This conversation finally made me realize why I don’t get Facebook. It’s because I don’t want to socialize, really. I just don’t.

She proceeded to tell me more about mp3 downloading and listening to music, and texting.

Here’s a thought on YouTube:

Me: So do you watch videos on YouTube?
Niece: Not really. I mean, we do watch the “hot” clips and stuff, but no one I know sits around and watches videos online instead of TV.

Wow, it’s amazing to see how that generation is truly utilizing today’s tools to interact with each other, not just daily, but by the minute.

When was the last time you talked to someone in your target market? It’s a sure-fire way of learning about how they use and think about your tools and company.

Heck, ask your Niece. It works for me.

A few days ago I sorta quit Twittering, reading or writing. I’m still off the Twitter crack, for now, but now that I’m feeling refreshed like a summer’s breeze again, I am wondering if it’s time to just dump Facebook too.

I’m like the Heat-Mizer of social tools!

I swear this isn’t linkbait (Sam). You’ve heard me say this privately. I don’t “get” Facebook. At least Twitter was awesomely useful to me, despite being overwhelming.

Facebook to me is like a nice, more “friendly” version of Linkedin.

But at least Facebook is free.

So do I need to get rid of Facebook? The answer is no, but what do I really need it for? I don’t really go there more than once every few days, and that’s just to accept new friends, check a few spammy messages and see what everyone updated to.

I’ve heard friends tell me they are using Facebook hours out of every day… Doing what? Seriously.

Perhaps I’m just a fuddy-duddy. Perhaps I’m missing something. Besides being a glorified contact database for me, what other problems does it solve for me? I can’t figure it out.

The best tools and services are those that solve problems for me. I’m struggling to figure out where Facebook fits in that equation for me.

I always wondered why Facebook was being valued so high. Then I read Shawn’s post about Facebook Flyers – The Next Google Adwords?

Wow. Think about it. You can put pay-per-click ads into Facebook, and you can geo-target them by city, sex, political beliefs, etc…

I’m going to test out a few Cleveland, Ohio based ads to see how they perform and I’ll report back with the results.

Just got a notification that Chitika now has a Facebook application, and… they’re promoting it using an affiliate program. Pretty neat way of getting attention. It pays $1.00 per application added into Facebook.

Here’s my code, if you wish to give me a dollar that is.

Valleywag has the story.

Here’s the part I was interested in.

The main question, though, is how much its sponsorship business can grow without offending users. Only one sponsored story can show up at a time on a user’s homepage, which limits inventory. And with Facebook apps now vying for users’ attention, will sponsored groups still spread as quickly from user to user?

We need a word for this. You know, the time between when a startup is ad free and then that critical point when they “turn on the ads”.

What to call it? Any suggestions? It needs a buzz word.

I swear I’m trying. I log in every day and go to “home”, and I see stuff happening. But, honestly, I don’t know “what I’m supposed to do?”

Am I supposed to just add new friends and send stupid gifts and leave messages? What exactly am I supposed to do? Is it supposed to replace my email? Because for me that’s ridiculous.

When you log in, what do you do? What is the purpose beyond having another network of friends and sending messages to one another?

Am I missing something? Then again, I didn’t “get” Twitter for months. Perhaps I’m just a slow adopter?