Deleted By Facebook

Facebook just deleted the profiles for Ali Barrett, Simon Beals, Devon Ross and Jory Goudge. Coincidentally these are all of the characters I mentioned during last night’s CaseCamp presentation. Apparently some of the people who got friended by Ali and Simon were very offended and blew the whistle on the project.

It’s sad because it was fun having them on Facebook and using Facebook for storytelling way back in January was a really effective way to communicate with the audience. But even by early March when we ran the second experiment, Facebook was already too crowded an environment and we did very little storytelling in that venue.

It seems to me that early this year, Facebook took a strong cultural shift. Instead of being an underground play space it turned into a business must-have. People are serious about and on Facebook.

I made a rather large boo-boo in not taking this cultural shift into account. Some of the attendees had gotten friendship requests from Simon and Ali and were upset to learn that imaginary people were rubbing shoulders with them. I did apologize to them, from stage and again in person — rather profusely in fact. But too little too late apparently.

If any of them are reading this, I do apologize once again and especially the woman with dark hair who questioned me from the audience. I would have sent flowers this morning if I knew who you are.

In order to attract an audience from now on, there will be no push, only pull.

Important lesson learned.

But the show must go on. This is show biz, baby.

Ali’s and Simon’s blogs still live. And the boytellsall videos can be found on your favourite video sharing site whatever it may be. I will have Facebook fan pages up shortly for Ali and Simon. They were always sketched in because as I said, I knew this would happen eventually.

But as we look forward to expanding this kind of storytelling into three month season, I do not think Facebook will be a useful forum for our storytelling. It is media rich and it is well populated, but it isn’t quite the fun-loving environment it once was.

There are lots of other sites, new ones coming onboard all the time. And when we tell our next story, we’ll be trying out some new platforms.

Telling You a Story

If you want to follow the story as it unfolds this week, you’ll need some links.

Homebase is Ali Barrett’s blog, Ali Purls.  She’ll keep you posted on everyone else’s posts.  You can follow her on Twitter and be her Facebook friend.

Check out boytellall too.  That’s the blog belonging to Simon Beals.  He’s been Twittering like crazy lately.  You can also find him on Facebook.

Simon’s pal, Andrew Gray, blogs in drawings at Rew the Gray.   And take a look at Web Archaelogist, where Lauren always seems to have a relevant link.

And don’t be surprised if the characters turn up on other social networking sites.  They’re just looking for friends anywhere they can find them.

The Story So Far

Here’s what we know so far:

In her blog, Ali Purls, Ali Barrett has, for some weeks now, been tracing her relationship to a new beau. Although she doesn’t name him, we know it to be Devon Ross because until Sunday, her Facebook relationship status was “in a relationship with Devon Ross.”

From the beginning Ali’s blog betrays an ambivalence to Devon. She even mentions meeting a friend of his with whom she shared a certain chemistry.

Meanwhile, according to Devon’s Twitters, he was over the moon about the relationship.

Then Ali tempted fate by giving Devon a sweater she’d knit even though every knitter knows about the sweater curse.

For a week or so, Ali’s been hinting that things aren’t working out with Devon. And then, on Sunday, the Facebook mini-feed announced the news: Ali Barrett was suddenly single.

Devon hasn’t been taking this lying down. He’s been calling, sending Facebook gifts and Twittering about the relationship. He even left a message on Ali’s wall that he was dropping by her place for breakfast Monday.

On Monday, a new post appeared on Ali’s blog about the night before, too many shots of Jager and jumping into bed with a cute new guy. She was beginning to think this might be a good thing and that may she and the cute new guy could go out again.  Then she noticed an itch.

Meanwhile, on an anonymous blog called boytellsall, this video appeared:

His friends will recognize “boy” as none other than Simon Beals. And undoubtedly the guy behind the camera is his good friend and partner in crime, Jory Goudge.

The fun continues today with lots of action over on Facebook. Check it out.

The Story Begins

Simon Beals has video podcast about his adventures in dating. Ali Barrett blogs called about knitting, relationships and sex. Their lives are about to collide.

Is it the beginning of a great romance or a disaster in the making?

You can follow their story through their posts, their Facebook pages and their other social networking activity in Story2Oh! unfolding all around you on the web.

Chapter 1: boymeetsgirl will roll out of the week of January 14th 2008 with future chapters coming soon.