There’s a new community for fans of the FIR Podcast Network and its various shows and hosts. It’s on Facebook.

Our long-standing community on Google+ has been great. The conversation lately, however, has been diminishing in tandem with the decline of Google+ as a social network. A few people have continued to contribute (big shout outs to Christie Goodman, Harry Hawk, and Alex Yong). Fut for most, I suspect making a special trip to Google+ just is no longer in the cards. Google is continuing to marginalize Google+ — as of September 12, for example, you’ll need to use YouTube to start a Hangout on Air; HOAs are being completely decoupled from Google+ — the situation is only going to continue to deteriorate.

While Facebook is, indeed, another walled garden, at least it’s one that virtually everybody who listens to FIR uses, which I hope will make it easier to participate in conversations about show content and other topics of interest to the FIR community. (Frankly, it’ll be easier for me, since there’s just no comparison between the amount of time I spent on Facebook vs. Google+.) And the more people who participate, the more podcast hosts can incorporate the community’s ideas and thoughts into their content.

In other words, it’s my hope that we can return to FIR’s roots as a listener-driven series of podcasts.

Thank you, listeners, for your amazing support of the efforts of everyone involved in bringing these shows to you.

FIR Podcast Network Community on Facebook

About Shel Holtz

Shel Holtz, ABC (Accredited Business Communicator), is director of Internal Communications at Webcor, a commercial general contractor headquartered in San Francisco. Before joining Webcor, Shel spent 21 years as principal of Holtz Communication + Technology. In addition to integrating technology into communications strategies, his expertise includes strategic communications planning, change management, organizational culture, business initiatives and communications research. Full bio