There's been a thread recently which was in danger of becoming a bit defocused with regards to comments about Facebook.
Now, I have an account on Facebook, in part because it's a great way to see how my family and relatives are doing, from Missouri to Australia, and many points inbetween, and to keep up-to-date with friends and work colleagues past and present. It's a great way to keep in touch, share photos. You can lock an account down to just the people who you want to share stuff with.
About eight years ago I developed a website for a local small business, we let it grow organically over time, and it's done wonders for his company. Great position in Google, copious photos of the work they do, email links, all the bells and whistles. A year or so ago we discussed setting up a Facebook account to run alongside the website, to allow potential clients to get in touch via that medium if they wanted. I wasn't sure it was the right thing to do: I was pretty skeptical, to be honest, but I went ahead with it.
And it's gone ballistic. I co-moderate the corporate Facebook account and I've seen it rise from one or two messages a week to dozens per day: people enquiring about work, posting reviews of the work they've had done, posting photos of completed jobs. My client uses the Facebook Messaging service to arrange site visits and schedule jobs. It's proved to be a great revenue source for him. All this, incidentally, without using the advertising options that Facebook hope commercial clients will spend money on.
Today, Facebook is heading for two billion accounts. Some people might not like its increasingly pervasive takeover of the 'social media' corner of the internet, but - for those with commercial interests - the buyers are there in large numbers. They can search and find you, ask questions, get answers, place orders.
From what I've seen so far, Alba Mouldings are taking exactly the right approach: they can announce products in a Facebook setting that can be found by anyone, and they're also using targeted forums like this one to highlight their products to exactly the sort of audience that will make up most of the buyers. It's win-win. Good on 'em.
Now...where's an 'as built' hull of the WW1 QE class?
Andy