You likely live under a rock if you are unfamiliar with the drama that surrounds today. Yes, not everyone is a basketball nut like me, but when I see Twitter ablaze with comments from non-fans saying things like: “Enough with this LeBron thing” and comparing his team choice to that of the Twilight meme of “Team Edward vs. Team Jacob”, I know the conversation has transcended that of sports talk.

When James chose to make his announcement during a live interview on ESPN many pundits cried fowl. They claim James and his staff have taken things too far, creating an unnecessary media circus. Yes, he is giving all sponsorship proceeds to charity. But that is not enough to stop the chorus of hisses by sports critics and even marketing professionals.

Let’s cut to the chase. Western culture loves sensationalism! We love to see people rise to the highest peaks of fame and also revel when they fall from grace. Its 24-hour news, social networks, tabloids, etc. Tiger Woods, anyone?

From a fan’s perspective, I think it is great for the game. This year’s abundance of talented free agents shifted the power to the players, allowing them to determine their destiny (for the most part). Folks, let’s not forget that the NBA is a big business. James, Wade, Bosh, Boozer and others created a coalition of sorts that changed the way teams managed the negotiations. They had choices, they were tired of being the lone gunman of their organizations. They created alliances in hopes of building a better team around their talent. Both for their own well being and for the fans of resident cities. The pursuit of the NBA’s highest honor, a championship, is likely every player’s desire.

And from a marketer’s perspective, I think it is brilliant. I enjoyed the hype leading up to his decision and love the potential of the Miami Heat being a dominant force next season. The city of Chicago even went as far as hiring advertising giant Leo Burnett to craft a personal campaign to taunt LeBron, play with his emotions and try to lure him to the Bulls. Rapper Jay-Z, part owner of the New Jersey Nets, was one of the team’s representatives that pitched to James last weekend. Filling James with hopes of building his empire around his personal brand in Brooklyn.

If you are tired of the coverage or simply hate basketball, stay off of social media sites and turn off the TV for the evening. Sorry, its a big deal! As for me, I’ll be glued to ESPN tonight at 9pm EST. I still think LeBron may have a trick up his sleeve and surprise us all.

Yes, I know many faithful still frequent MySpace and some also refuse to conform and migrate to Facebook like millions of others. If you are a musician or band, MySpace still is great place for self promotion – you can upload and sell your music, something you cannot do through Facebook.

I ran a site comparison at Compete.com of traffic for both Facebook and MySpace over the past two years. Less than 12 months ago their respective traffic was at parity (approximately 59 million unique visitors in December 2008). After that Facebook was off to the races and MySpace continued it’s inevitable decline.

[Show as slideshow]

What happened in December of 2008 that caused this tremendous upswing? What does Facebook offer that MySpace does not?

If you would prefer, here is Danah Boyd’s very heady and research driven explanation (a great read!).

Below are 3 reason that immediately come to mind when I ponder this shift.

1. It’s all about conversation
In my opinion, the most distinctive difference between the two is the threaded nature of Facebook. Not only in the fact that a comment to any item becomes a linear conversation – the conversation then is seeded beyond the original poster’s page. Simply seeing items that mutual friends comment on creates a cross pollinated conversation. Many times I have reconnected with old friends through comments on other’s posts.

2. We appreciate consistency
I have never seen two MySpace pages that look alike. Often times they are so cluttered with heavy background images and poorly designed themes I have no idea where to find a user’s blog, photos or anything. Some are a complete disaster and inevitably crash my browser. Sure, people like to customize their online life – add their own flare. But this has a downside that Facebook has capitalized on. Very similar to Bose kiosk and Apple Stores the consistent user experience of Facebook is part of it’s charm.

The good ol’ KISS Principle (Keep It Simple Stupid) bleeds through the entire experience from signup to customization. By adhering to a very unified and clean interface, Facebook immediately differentiated itself from MySpace.

3. Keep out!
Around the time when MySpace was under tremendous heat by media outlets because of stalkers, sexual predators and creeps in general – many users opted to ‘lockdown’ their profiles. If you are not someone’s friend you basically can only see a name and photo. Fair enough, you should be careful of what personal information you share publicly. But let’s say you would like to use MySpace for networking purposes and allow certain profile areas visible to search and browse. No dice. Again, this is where Facebook trumps the other. It’s variable privacy settings are highly customizable and a god-send for those of us with ‘mixed-company’ in our personal networks. I can pick and chose what items I’d like to share within my networks, groupings of friends or simply cherry-pick friends that I’d like to share photo albums with. Brilliant!

So, what else can we contribute to this change?

Will MySpace be around in 5 years? If so, what will sustain it? I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Then came the co-workers, bosses, (we learned quickly about ‘Limited Profiles’) the people who you never talked to in high school (these people are still considered mixed company and their requests still live in my ‘Facebook Purgatory’). And slowly the family trickles in… your parents, aunts, uncles and cousins. They know me pretty well, I guess it’s cool. Right?

Well….Remember that feeling as a teen when you would first introduce a new friend to your parents? There was always that underlying fear that they would immediately – on cue – do or say something that would embarrass you to death… and your new friend would never look at you the same or even worse, never come over again! Well… that feeling is now resurrected every time I add a relative – or a “relative by circumstance” – as a Facebook Friend.

Then when one evening you check Gmail and to your disbelief, your MIL (mother-in-law) wants to be your friend. Your palms get sweaty, on a verge of a panic attack – your mind races with myriad thoughts of: “Oh no, what all do I have on my page? Wait, I bet I use all my favorite four letter words. Was I tagged in a photo doing a keg stand? Ugh, there’s that photo of me and that random girl in college, she’s not tagged, and I cannot remember her name, but she’s not her daughter! How many times have I said bad things about the MIL? I cannot say no, or can I? What will the wifey think? If I deny her it will cause family warfare!”

Reality sinks in. The party is over. I cannot just be ‘me’ anymore, I have to be me as perceived by this mixed bag of every dynamic of my life. Today is the first day of my new Multiple Personality Disorder…

My Facebook Persona.

You spend the next hour in a schizophrenic flurry of digging through each and every photo, wall post, comment… every crumb of info that could be held against you at the next family get together. You feel like a criminal, that never committed a crime, but you have to hide the evidence. The evidence of the real you. After a glass or two, eventually a bottle of wine, you calm down a bit. You think of your dear spouse, and the sadness it would bring her to know you just went through a small crisis that revolves around a seemingly trivial website and the woman that brought her into the world and consequentially, into your life. “Sure they are family too, yes?”, you ask yourself. You signed the contract to love and cherish and all that stuff – and to a certain extent, them too. Right?

With great regret and loss of self, you scrub your account of the potential dirty laundry.

But wait, it gets better. It’s not just your in-laws, No no, the party doesn’t stop there! It’s your in-law’s friends also. Yup, the certified crazy girlfriend of your MIL who’s breakfast consist prozac chased with cheap gin. The one that showed up to your son’s first birthday party with her fourth husband – or was it the fifth?. Oh right, the guy with the goatee and a lisp…

Oh it doesn’t end there… your sibling’s in-laws are now your ‘friends’ too. Yep! All it takes is a wedding. You politely share a few photos, tag them, and your private little sanctum is completely blown to bits. It’s an avalanche of tangential faces connected to one place, one moment. But they are new to Facebook… they don’t have the history, the prowess, the etiquette… they see your face in your MIL’s wall stream and innocently think to themselves, “Oh there’s Scott, and his beautiful boy!” They click on your avatar (that’s the profile pic, duh) and are directed to a page that says “Add as Friend.” Innocently and/or naively enough, they click.

Ok, you can have a little fun with this scenario… you can get a better read on their crazy.

The beauty of social media is people’s real-world personalities often are reflected on through the medium. If you have always been non-clinically diagnosed (that means, you haven’t seen a shrink, but we all know you should) with Borderline, Histrionic Personality Disorder chances are your Status Updates are mirror images of your IRL (in real life) psyche. Everything is a crisis, and you must let all of us know… Facebook is your new theater. When you see, “What’s on your mind?” in the little status box, you speak to it like the therapist you refuse to see. Simply saying, “Work was a bad today, cannot wait for a drink” You go one a 500 word diatribe detailing every event and consequence in your typical melodramatic fashion.

With that said, to be fair, I’m going to offer a few tips to those still milling around in the social media exosphere:

1. Would you say that if you knew 600 people were in the room?
Well, that’s what it is like on Facebook. If I post something like: “So ready to move on” Through the day some close friends may comment with “Me too, right here with you.” Or, “What’s up, call me!” Then comes the family… “Oh honey, it will be alright, I love you so much, you will always be my baby, I miss you so much, I wish I could hold you and make it all better.” Ugh… just pick up that damn phone and call me. Not only can everyone read it, but likely those who commented before you receive an email notification with your reply. And 9 out of 10 times that is the end of that discussion. When I see a Wall Post and the last comment is obviously from a family member I quickly move on. Take a look back at your comments… are you usually the last comment? Well, there is a reason for it. We call it “being in mixed company”. The same holds true on Facebook.

2. Yes, we know… our kids are precious.
They are the center of our lives, and likely now – the center of yours. Let’s face it, we are relegated to a secondary status. When we come to visit, you give us the proverbial hug and a peck on the cheek and within a nanosecond you dart to the grandkid. Nothing new. We understand. Facebook is the perfect place for us proud breeders to post photos of our darlings – all of our friends are having kids, they do it too. But please do not comment on each – and – every – photos with virtual smooches.

3. You are you, not our kid!
Again, you adore your grand baby. You better!!! However, don’t use pictures of him or her as your profile photo. You already comment on every.single.photo.we.post – there is no need for me to see my kid, as you, when you post. I understand, you are proud, you want to share that pride with your friends. But, it is kinda creepy. Be yourself! Have fun with your profile pic, why not use a photo of you as a baby? It’s creative and fun!

4. “Become a friend of…”
Take notice, this is still the way Facebook frames the connections we make. You can identify relatives/relationships in settings, but we are all still viewed as ‘friends’. Sorry, family are not ‘friends’ – your Mom may be like “your best friend”. But really, you are not. When I’m talking about cool stuff I did with my friends, just read it, look at the pics and appreciate that I have a life of my own. Don’t comment about it. Again, just call me!

5. TMI
Some of the latest “quizzes” on Facebook – which I religiously block at first glance – may seem cute to you, and with your limited point of reference to Facebook. You may think… “Oh, neat… this is what Facebook is all about.” Wrong. Most of us ‘veterans’ consider this nothing more than personal spam. Or as we geeks say “Memes”. Really I do NOT want to know “Which Dirty Disney Character You Are?” I’m your nephew, that’s just sick and wrong! Crazy thoughts race through my mind. You really think about this? Do you wear costumes behind closed doors. EWWW!! Remember, I can see it! Likely your boss can see. And, oh my god, my grandmother, YOUR MOTHER, can see it. Would we have this conversation around Thanksgiving dinner? I would surely hope not… I could never enjoy of your masterful oyster stuffing the same. Ever. Again.

6. Tag, you’re it !
Photo tagging on Facebook is a wonderful way (and sometimes a means to embarrassment) to share photos not only to those pictured, but also to YOUR friends. The system does it… you don’t need to. Your daughter posts her wedding pictures, you want all your friends to see the album. Naturally, each photo you have been tagged in will show up in your feed, and consequentially to your friend’s feeds. Perfect! You do NOT need to tag yourself in every photo so your friends can see it. The default setting in Facebook for photos is “Viewable by Friends of Friends” – You are not the wedding cake, so do not tag the wedding cake. Ok?

- In Part Two I’ll give more specifics about settings in Facebook, and concrete examples of good and bad uses of the medium.

• Disclaimer: The majority of this post is satire – a culmination of conversations I’ve had with dozens of friends and their frustrations with balancing self, work and family in a social media world •