DDB Paris created an app that allows Facebook users to make a hard copy, bound book containing their facebook posts from days, weeks, months past. Take a look:
When Facebook becomes a book from Siavosh Zabeti on Vimeo.
Good idea? Bad idea? Something in between?
I view this as a muddling of two rather distinct, not necessarily related, insights. First, the digital era and the fleeting dynamic it naturally gives rise to. Second, the age old theory that, from time to time, friends and family share meaningful sentiment in the form of kind words, pictures, memories, etc. we want to hold onto.
But, where does Facebook fit in? Is Facebook truly a forum for meaningful sentiment? Or simply a place for casual banter, hellos, birthday wishes, nice to see ya's and other things best left in cyber dust? I vote that later.
Put another way, would you want your Facebook posts from the past month bound in a book sitting atop your own coffee table?
I'm calling this one OFF STRATEGY.
Agreed-- no thank you to a printed book of pokes!
ReplyDeleteAlthough.. people seem to like their cyber dust collected in end-of-year cyber memes, like that popular "My Year in Status" app that's returned for a second year: http://www.socialtimes.com/2010/12/going-viral-my-year-in-status-stylishly-memorializes-all-your-2010-facebook-status-updates/
It has all the appeal of a high school yearbook right?
I was a livejournal geek in college, and after years blogging there, used a PDF converter to combine all those posts into one document. They were long-winded personal diary entries (filtered by friends-only). Some people I knew had those PDFs printed into bound books (also by some nifty web service that did everything for you) that you could sit down and read.. like the regular person's memoirs. (It would probably be hidden in my bookshelf though and not on a coffeetable!)
I won't lie though. I miss the long-form narrative and still read the 3 or 4 friends who still post lengthy missives on LJ