UpstartCornwall

Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock recently - you’ve probably heard of Facebook. The all in one networking / social network / stalker website everyone uses to keep in touch with their friends.
I’ve been using FB since the day they opened it to the public. It used to be only for people in networks such as Harvard Alumni and company networks such as GE. The first year and half I was on FB - I had very few friends. FB was really boring back then. Then around January of 2007 I started to see a big increase in the amount of people I knew using FB - and the site really took off locally. It wasn’t long before one person told another who told another. And while this also happening across the country and the US - locally I saw a major shift in the number of people communicating with me via this “new” tool.

So what does Facebook have to offer us in Cornwall? Here’s a sampling of the most popular groups serving the area:

Cornwall ON Should Be A Network On facebook!!!!
1,942 members
This is a group dedicated to making Cornwall its own Facebook network. A network would allow people in Cornwall to have a shared events calendar, notice boards etc and would mean that everyone like myself wouldn’t have to list Ottawa as our network of choice.

Cornwall for life!
1,602 members
This group is the main hub of discussion about Cornwall on Facebook.

You Know You’re From Cornwall If…
1,404 members
Mainly meant to be a humourous group - the list features incredibly funny lines such as:
- You drive to the Mac’s Milk parking lot looking for a party.
- You don’t “notice” the smell of Pulp and Paper mills

were from cornwall, we can probably out party you
1,229 members
That’s right - its just about partying in Cornwall and such.

Young Entrepreneur Society
26 members
I helped start this group so that any young entrepreneurs in town could get together and discuss business in Cornwall. So far we have 26 members - which is great. Hopefully through Facebook we’ll be able to make this networking group work.

From a business perspective - I think people should be taking notice. Facebook makes it really easy for friends to communicate with ALL of their friends at once and word of mouth advertising travels fast on this site. Some people are also using Facebook as a great means of attracting people to local events - by inviting all of their 1,000 + friends to a specific event. Before Facebook it would have taken some serious organization, costs, and time to get 1,000 of your closest friends to know about an event - now it takes 3 seconds.

Facebook is quickly adding several features that make it easier for people to communicate and to add business listings and feedback on companies. The Word of mouth power behind Facebook should really be taken seriously by businesses looking to get their name out in Cornwall.

This entry was posted on Saturday, November 24th, 2007 at 11:24 pm and is filed under Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.