The Jeff Pulver Blog: Facebook Comes Alive: Reflections from a Social Media Evening

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December 17, 2007

Facebook Comes Alive: Reflections from a Social Media Evening

During my recent trip to Tel Aviv, I co-hosted a “Social Media Evening” together with Tom Evslin, Daniel Berninger and Yossi Vardi at the Tel Aviv Sheraton.

Imagine walking into a room and seated in front of you were 143 of your friends from Facebook who came to an informal gathering to discuss the current state of social media. Looking into the crowd you quickly recognize the people that you actually know and then there are the people you are seeing for the first time in person, but whose faces you have gotten to know during the past few months. Overall the room reflected a connected randomness with a structure I had not experienced before. So for me, this was a surreal experience, sort of a “friends of Jeff Pulver on Facebook Town Hall meeting.”

Part of the randomness came from the fact that I didn’t actually invite anyone to the informal gathering. Instead, I decided to engage in a social experiment, one where I simply created a Facebook event and provided the details. Initially, just a date and time and then a week later a location. And along the way the magic of Facebook took over and people who discovered the event took it upon themselves to invite friends to it. By the time the event commenced, 268 people confirmed their attendance. The night of the gathering was a rainy and stormy night in Tel Aviv. Given the local weather conditions, I was impressed that more than 50% of the people who signed up, showed up.

The only person in the room who wasn’t on Facebook was Yossi Vardi. Yossi explained he would consider joining Facebook, but only after Facebook added the ability to be invisible. A feature which if Facebook were to add, I believe would attract another wave of people into Facebook and a feature which might help provide a layer of protection for all our kids who are already on Facebook.

People in the photos include: Zvika Netter, Tal Chalozin, Nimrod Lehavi, Gilad Zirkel, Lotem Hayun, Tal Muskal, Tal Perry, Niv Calderon, Sanghyun Ahn, Tom Evslin, Daniel Berninger, Gilad Carni, Jeff Pulver, Kfir Pravda, Hagai Jacobson, Ron Shoshani, Orli Yakuel, Guy David, Israel Blechman, Ziva Orian, Michal Geva, Yariv Nachshon, Yael Shany, Eitan Burcat, Liz Butchins, Amir Dror, Nadav Young, Shachar Tal, Zohar Steinberg, Ron Ben-Haim, Ayelet Yagil, Hagai Pipko, Yaron Carni, Guy Rutenberg, Raphael Menachem, Gil Dibner, Yael Givon, Gil Rimon, Marc Fischman, Israel Drori, Batia Mach Shepherd, Yosi Taguri, yossi vardi, Dudu Noy, Nadav Bruchiel, Amit Aharoni, dudu noy, Merav May, Rami Amit, Ronen Eyal, Tatiana Ouaknine, Gal Mor, Yuval Tal, Klieger Roy, Ruti Polachek, Tzahi Sofer, Guy Tomer, Gil Hirsch, Nissim Bar Siman Tov, Doron Tamir, Moran Tal, Eyal Peleg, Roy Man, Lior Lifshitz and Chris Anderson

Tags: Tel Aviv, Kfir Pravda, Tom Evslin, Daniel Berninger, Social Media, Facebook, Jeff Pulver