I was thinking recently about what life was like online for me before the advent of browsers and the World Wide Web. Now, I wasn’t a hardcore hacker geek or phone phreak back in the 90′s like some people, I was more your typical casual user, a layperson, I guess. My very first email address was a CompuServe address (7751.234501osmething something @ compuserve.com). My online experience lived basically on CompuServe, with its various communities and discussion areas etc. Geez, it’s tough to remember. The main benefit for me

was that CompuServe was a place that most of the music software companies had updates, patches and goodies for their products, so I could keep Cubase up to date, and maybe even download some samples for my sampler!

Then all of a sudden, the bigger world of the WWW opened up. I remember when CompuServe suddenly offered a portal to it, and you could use their version of Mosaic to “surf.” Suddenly, the internet meant something other than just Compuserve. My online horizons broadened immensely. I discovered…..that I didn’t know how to find anything (Google wasn’t around yet).

Up until that point, the Internet had meant, for me, CompuServe. For some, it meant AOL (but nobody I still hang around with). For some, Prodigy. CompuServe is Where I Lived. The World Wide Web changed that. I had moved from a little enclave, like a city in the 13 Colonies, out to the frontier, the Wild Wild West. Here, you could be anonymous. Here there were no rules. No moderators. You could register websites at exorbitant prices and put fake info in the registration information. It was great!

Now, fast forward to today. I’d consider myself an Internet “Power User” I guess. But for most people online, it’s different. I’ve always said that everyone who spends time online has someplace that they “live.” Maybe it’s a forum, maybe it’s a news aggregator like Fark or Digg. But a slow realization has been dawning on me, and it’s changing the way I think about things. Grudgingly, I’ll admit, but I think I’ve hit a turning point.

What is the Internet to most people today? Is it made up of a bunch of websites and email addresses and IM accounts and IRC chat rooms? Nope. I posit that today, to most people in the US and many places abroad, their Internet is…wait for it…Facebook.

Yep, Facebook. Arm-in-arm with the two other branches of the Internet Trinity: YouTube and, to a lesser extent,Twitter. There, I said it. But I think it’s true, and this article was my revelation: Facebook accounts for 25% of U.S. online pageviews. Think about that for a second. One in four page views of anything on the Internet is on Facebook. That’s huge, right?

Social Media Trinity

The Social Media Trinity: Facebook, YouTube, Twitter

So it struck me that Facebook is kind of becoming its own Internet within the Internet, the difference being that you can connect and interact with all your friends while there, something the real WWW doesn’t really let you do by default. Anonymity is much less of a problem, so trust is greater, and it’s just plain easier to keep in touch. Email? Nah, why? I can just message someone on Facebook. AIM or Windows Live Messenger? No way! I can just chat with my friends right there.

Most of the people I know interact with and care about are on Facebook. In fact, almost half of Americans have social network profiles. I’m reconnecting with old friends I haven’t talked with for 20 years (which can be a double-edged sword, believe me). It’s easy. My mom can use it. It’ll work on the iPad (I think?).

So, for many Americans, Facebook is Where They Live. So, what does this mean for us ARG and transmedia designers? It means if we don’t have some sort of major Facebook (and to a lesser extent YouTube and Twitter) integration in our projects, it’s sort of like we’re ignoring half our potential audience, which….would be stupid, right?

Additionally, using Facebook means much more than having a place where we can put profiles for fictional characters. That’s just scratching the surface. Using Facebook Connect right lets us have access to players’ personal info (with their permission, of course) to use in really cool ways. From the simple things like providing forms that are already filled out to pairing up with friends (Sherlock Holmes) to scraping photos of friends and family to creepily integrate into flash movies (Flash Forward), these Facebook apps, despite their somewhat annoying tendency to spam our friends, offer us opportunities for personalizing an ARG or transmedia experience like never before. And I’m talking more than just getting permission to update peoples’ feeds with stupid, spammy messages. “I’ve found the secret of a nefarious corporation! Join me in my fight against them at wehatemetacortex.com! [url doesn't even hotlink]”

Please! We’re so much better than that, aren’t we? :)

So yeah, I’ve resisted this, kicking and screaming along the way. But facts are facts, and anyone denying this as just hype has their head in the sand at this point. Why ignore half the internet? Why ignore the way people are actually using it? The landscape is changing fast, and we need to keep up with the changes our perish. We need to meet our audience where they live with all of their friends and community, instead of trying to drag them somewhere new.

It’s not about increased revenue or ROI or metrics or any of that (even though that’s great), as much as it’s about engaging people where they are. And no matter where we want it to be, at this present time it’s pretty much right here. I’d be remiss if I didn’t pimp the fact that No Mimes is there as well (fan us!)…and we’ve got some exciting things in the works as far as social media is concerned, so stay tuned (or stay friended or following or whatever).

Now, excuse me, I have to go harvest some grapes before they wither…