Consider for a moment the ever increasing presence of Facebook in your life. Your mom is on Facebook, your mom’s friends are friending you, your friend’s friends are making comments to you about your life that you never told them personally, politcal pundits are quoting Facebook statuses as sources.

Our jobs at dynamit, and consequently our lives on occasion, revolve around digital monsters like Facebook and Twitter. The research emails flying back and forth among the team this week have certainly had a Facebook theme. So as Facebook hits us with more announcements on their continued changes, upgrades, new features and privacy, I couldn’t help but wonder if you’re suffering from Facebook fatigue like so many others.

The point of course, is that it doesn’t matter. Facebook is here to stay.

Thus, as it grows it also becomes more relevant, and recent announcements only support this.

Yesterday, Facebook officially announced its entry into the LBS market with Places. Location-based services still largely live on the fringes of the general public – Foursquare is growing in popularity, with Gowalla finding it’s own niche – but with Facebook’s announcement (along with the apparent whole-hearted support of both Foursquare and Gowalla – a topic for another post), the LBS market is about to explode. With 500 million Facebook users, its not hard to understand why.

Michael Gartenberg of the Altimeter Group recently commented in a blog post, ”This is an important announcement as it establishes Facebook immediately as not only a credible player in this space but arguably the most important player. I’ve argued in the past the features such as “check in” are more of a feature than a standalone service and therefore the idea of integrating this directly into Facebook, already a key hub of social activity makes sense.”

Facebook is also making changes to it’s profile tabs and application boxes. While a seemingly insignificant change to the aesthetic of a Facebook profile, it has pretty large implications for the 3rd party developers who rely on the visuals afforded them in the application boxes. Now, all they have to work with is a (smaller) tab displaying their name, and hope the user likes them enough to click on it.

So what does all this mean? Why are you reading the ramblings of an Account Manager working for an industry leading digital firm? Because we’re all trying to make sense of where Facebook is headed, and how we can stay on the bleeding edge of it’s influence and power. Nick highlighted a very tangible, hard to ignore example of this power last week in his post - read it, if you haven’t already.

We know where the biggest surf is, so if you want to ride the wave with us, grab your board and give us a call.

Dynamit was honored as one of the “Best Places to Work” in 2010 & 2011 by Columbus Business First newspaper and Interactive Agency of the Year. Times are even better in 2012 and we’re hiring a Web/Graphic Designer for our aggressively growing team.

This is an exciting opportunity to work on cutting edge projects for well-known brands in a dynamic, entrepreneurial and highly creative environment. Please email resumes/cover letters and portfolio information (documents or links to online examples) to Gary Moneysmith via gmoney@dynamit.us.

A web/graphic designer on the Dynamit team will:

• Be well versed with Adobe Creative Suite: Strong knowledge of Photoshop, experience with Illustrator and InDesign.
• Have a strong understanding of Usability & Web Trends: Experience with user interface design, knowledge of best practices & examples of this in a portfolio or live site/application design. They will also be up-to-date on web trends and design tactics with examples.
• Have experience in user experience design (UXD) designing application and system interfaces. This experience is crucial for this position.
• Have Basic Programming Knowledge: We’re not looking for a developer here, but the designer should have the ability to design for web with a knowledge of the boundaries and how to design for execution by a programmer.
• Have a Strong Portfolio: We’d like to see much more web work than print.
• Be eager to learn, with a passion for design & the web. The designer should have a strong internal drive for industry knowledge and be committed to furthering the craft.

Experience is important, but personality is key. Our culture is what drives us, and we’re looking to build our team with someone who both fits and contributes to it.

The position is full time at our office in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. We offer a competitive salary and benefits package as well as a fun, high-energy, intellectually-stimulating work environment.

Benefits Include

• Competitive salary (compensation will be based on skills and experience)
• Fully paid medical/dental insurance for employees
• Paid parking
• Unlimited vacation time (within reason)
• Office bar + climbing wall — not recommended together

Don’t sit back. If you want to work in a fast paced work environment with great people who love what they do, apply today.

About Dynamit
Dynamit is a digital agency based in the Arena District in Columbus, Ohio. We work with clients and brands on digital initiatives that include strategy, design, user experience and development. We influence communication and commerce. Client work includes Hilton Worldwide, Charley's Grilled Subs, McGraw-Hill, British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), E-Z-GO, American Electric Power (AEP), Columbus College of Art & Design and the Ohio State Medical Center (OSUMC) to name but a few.