Facebook is not all it is cracked up to be

Facebook pages are not all they are cracked up to be. This idea fits in with The former Facebook mantra, "Move Fast and Break Things". Facebook certainly moved fast to get everyone on board, but now the everything is free model is gone. For business pages, it is pay to play.

The kids figured all this out before the old man. 

Facebook is a marketing behemoth generating billions of dollars. The numbers tell the story. Facebook's 2014 second-quarter revenues are just shy of 3 billion dollars, way up from $1.8 billion just a year ago. 

Gone is the user friendly, "whassup" approach. That is why the kids are leaving Facebook in droves for friendlier pastures. 

The old man works his Facebook Pages, but posts that once generated hundreds of views, now struggle to get dozens, even posts with many likes and shares.

Facebook kindly suggests Page owners use:

“…a combination of engaging Page posts and advertising to promote your message more broadly. Advertising lets Pages reach the fans they already have and find new customers as well. The fans you have matter." Facebook, December 5, 2013

At this point in the conversation, the old man coughs and the sound comes out, "Bullsh#t." 

Have you ever wondered where the phrase "not all it is cracked up to be" came from? One line of thought says the word "craic" or "crack" is from the Middle English word crak, which means "bragging talk." Another says that the word is Gaelic and though its definition is imprecise, the best notion is that it means fun. 

Either way, you know you are not getting what you bargained for, which is why Daniel Boone made the observation about Martin Van Buren that he was "not all he was cracked up to be."

Since we are speaking of crack, I can't let the topic slide by without talking about crack cocaine. It is once a thrill and highly addictive. Drug dealers get their clients hooked with "free" samples, and then have paying customers for life. That is cracked!

Is this a little harsh?

If so, then go back to World War II when tobacco companies gave out "free" cigarettes to soldiers fighting overseas. 

Did anyone see this coming? Rod Serling surely.

The post could have been called "To Serve Man" after the 1962 The Twilight Zone episode written by Damon Knight. It's a classic TV and the line "it's a cookbook" is memorable. Go look it up.