Verbosity 2.0 ~ Talking about life on Drupal

When I ran into some old friends in Vancouver this summer we parted with a "see you on Facebook" comment. We had been discussing the popular social networking tool and lamenting that it seems harder to arrange events using the utility. "After about four months you'll get over Facebook" said one of the women I was speaking to. Based on prior experience I knew she was right.

It is very easy to communicate on Facebook by utilizing different methods of interacting with people. You can poke someone, email them, post to their wall or interact with a myriad of plugin applications. The event planner is just one of the built-in methods. To use it, you click "events" on the leftmost side of your screen and click "create an event". Simple enough. The rest is simply filling in information and selecting a few friends to go.

Sounds easy right? So why is the event planner on Facebook so lacking?

The thing that Facebook is lacking is an adequate reminder system. The onus is still on the event planner to repeatedly message people until the date sticks. Otherwise, for all the people invited to an event, they will simply forget since Facebook does nothing on it's own to remind people, not even the owner!

Of course as you're reading this I know you're thinking "well, geeze Ryan, you must be a terrible event planner." Arguably, this is so. I love to coordinate events but I never like to be the one in charge when it comes to planning them (and if nobody plans them I do what I can). The reason that I thought Facebook would help is because everything appears to be easier because the contact list becomes a thing of the past.

Speaking of contact lists, you've probably already guessed what happens when someone isn't on your Facebook list. Yes, that's right, either you're messaging them individually or you're cutting them out of your life altogether. Sorry old friends, you're not on Facebook. Get with the program. Once they're on it though, they'll forget too because of the expectation that if you plan events with software that software should actually help you in some way, even if it's just a poke at the last second before the party starts.

Occasions when you could theoretically find success with Facebook events is when you know that everyone in your audience will take notes and transfer them to their calendaring system which they rely on for business. Otherwise, it will likely be lost unless the organizer is diligent about reminding people as they would using any other proven medium. Guess what kids? That means you get to fill out two emails now instead of one. Let's all rejoice in the new technology.