Over a year ago I coined the term The 5 C’s of Social Media as a way of describing how, at it’s core, social media afforded us 5 base opportunities:

• the opportunity to contribute – easy sharing of information
• the opportunity to comment – your chance to have your say
• the opportunity to collaborate – work with anyone, anywhere to achieve a common goal
• the opportunity of conversation – getting involved in discussions with others
• the opportunity of community – building relationships online

I expanded on how each of the C’s formed a part of the online social experience at the time and the ideas were well received, this post can now be found here.

Whilst being a good base form which to start describing the ideas behind social media the phrase was primarily a headline, an attention bringer so – in that regard – was a throw away; useful at the time but not retained or revisited.

It, therefore, makes it more interesting to find that the phrase appears to have taken on a life of it’s own. The phrase has been adopted, repeated, altered and adapted but, regardless of how it is wrapped up, as one blog post put it:

“amongst the social media circles it is nearly universally agreed, the elements of a good social media strategy consist of the 5 C’s: conversation, community, collaboration, contribution and commenting.”

The Sixth C

Back in June 2008 social media was still primarily reserved for the geeks and the early adopters; the holy grail for any social media service was to achieve ubiquity, to enter the mainstream. Then, around 6 months ago, things changed. In one month Twitter saw over 1300% growth with celebrities and the mainstream media trying to claim social media as their own. Whether you are listening to local radio or national sports coverage or watching TV everyone is now talking about Twitter. It has truly entered the public consciousness in a way that not even Facebook with it’s millions of users has managed to do.

People are now using short status updates as a matter of course, supplementing and even, in some cases, bypassing other forms of communication. I believe we have reached the point where social media can honestly be described as an extension of our normal behaviour and it is still growing.

The importance of the social network in our society is finally starting to fulfil it’s potential and, with more and more companies interacting with their customers in this setting, it is rapidly becoming just another way to do business.

My original suggestion for The Sixth C can, therefore, finally be adopted: culture.

The interwebs are abuzz with the news that Facebook is testing a new, streamlined version of its service called “Facebook Lite”. From a first glance at the leaked screenshots it appears to be far more Twitter like having just status updates but with Comments and Likes enabled. Some might say that it looks more like Friendfeed from a while back when the service was still quite new.

The emergence of Facebook Lite shortly after the aquisition of Friendfeed seems more than a coincidence but, according to TechCrunch it is designed for use in areas where download speeds are slow so we should not get over excited at present.

Potential

Whether or not Facebook Lite develops beyond a low bandwidth version of the site or becomes the frameowrk for something else remains to be seen. If it is kept free from all the clutter that plagues the normal version, then it could be the perfect vehicle for Friendfeed integration. If you add in additional import functionality then Lite has the potential to essentially become a Friendfeed clone – Facebook as it used to be: just for sharing info.

We don’t need to be told who has achieved what on Farmville, or poked, or invited to play Mafia Wars – this was the joy of the Friendfeed service and what really caught the imagination: a place to share, connect and discuss without the limitations of 140 characters.

Regardless of any change in functionality or version, however, a primary sticking point between the methods of operation of Facebook and Friendfeed is the actual friending behaviour. Facebook requires mutual friending but on Friendfeed (just like Twitter and other services) friending can be unilateral or not even required at all in order to interact with another user.

If Facebook could release a version without the need for mutual friending that includes full, real time search then we could be on to a winner.

A lot has already been said about Facebook’s acquisition of Friendfeed even though we don’t know the full details of how it will all pan out. The doom mongers are working overtime, almost revelling in the fact that they have an excuse for another pop at Facebook whilst others feel that this could be the best thing that could have happened (imagine what it would be like if Google or MS bought them instead).

The facts are that Facebook and Friendfeed are aimed at two disparate audiences for two disparate purposes with two completely distinct operating models. Facebook may have been “borrowing” some of the best ideas that Friendfeed had to offer and Friendfeed, in turn, may have been redesigned their interface to make it more familiar to users of other services but they (currently) remain at almost opposite ends of the social media spectrum.

Do we read between the lines from the announcement on the Friendfeed blog when it says that “Friendfeed will continue to operate normally for the time being” – does this mean that it will eventually be devoured by the Facebook monster and no longer exist as we know it? Most likely, but at present it is all speculation.

Cross-breeding functionality may well enhance both but the acquisition must be handled extremely carefully or the same cross breed could ruin both services and alienate both sets of users.

Community

Unfortunately, social media is a living paradox. It strives for openness and flexibility with accessibility from as many platforms as possible but, despite this surface flexibility, we are tied to the same back end. The constant battle between technological freedom and system dependence. We may be able to connect from anywhere but we are always connecting to the same thing.

But that is what social media is about. We have a choice of networks but a service is only as good as the people who use it, your friends and your community. I may use Twitter, you may use Plurk but without interaction they are meaningless. The choice exists but unless we get all of our friends, our community, to choose the same way we are talking to ourselves.

For all of the flexibility we crave we are governed, out of necessity, by the herd mentality and this is what has a lot of people running scared about the Friendfeed acquisition. If Friendfeed does get absorbed and cease to function as a separate entity what will the resulting offspring be like? Which features will come from either parent? Will we get a genetically perfect super child or end up with a Frankenstein’s monster and, ultimately, will we be able to persuade our community to migrate with us.

Fear of change

As a rule we fear change – at least BIG change – but change can be an extremely effective catalyst prompting new ideas and ways of achieving our goals. Whilst this fear may sometimes be justified it is, at the base level, often unfounded as the likes of Friendfeed are subject to constant change as the service evolves and grows over time. Perhaps the acquisition by Facebook is required for the next evolutionary jump to occur or, just as equally, it may cause an evolutionary dead end – the social media Neanderthal.

All we know is that the winds of change are blowing, their direction remains to be seen so we should all reserve judgement until the storm hits.

Sometimes we need to leave our comfort zones.