Facebook sucks?
It is wrong to think that following your friends online will introduce you to new ideas, opportunities and information. However, if you spend the same amount of time reading other people ideas but following a certain topic that interest you. This will probably expose you to more information, viewpoints, ideas, etc..
Curiosity killed the cat!
I don't know were did the above proverb come from. But I know how curiosity came to exist. It could be defined as the motivation to explore or examine. Curiosity is a hard wired innate behavior in many animals including invertebrates like fish. It is an instinct that probably increases our chances of survival. Simply by increasing our chances of getting food and/or sex. It is also important for learning and
development.
So a cat sniffing a small object, then either trying a small bite at it or leaving it afterwards, is out of curiosity. A kid throwing solid objects at a glass door several times and trying to understand why things don't pass through, is also out of curiosity.
There is nothing really new in what I have just said. Almost common sense.
Having developed out of a primordial soup that existed by the physical forces that were just a side effect to the accidental bad joke and entirely purposeless big bang. I propose, people join Facebook to get connected to other people to increase their chances of getting their sperm or ova join a biological procedure called fertilization, which is important for our genes to propagate.
So this is the subconscious reason then? Well, sort of but this doesn't explain things properly?
Psychological pressures
You see, I was curious to look around facebook so I could dismiss it and continue to play with my favourite web 2.0 toys; [twitter|http://twitter.com], [zooomr|http://zooomr.com], [del.icio.us|], [this blog|] and [Gmail|http://gmail.com].
Facebook is a closed network, it is like a fortress, people outside it couldn't see what people inside are doing. But people on the outside know the existence of the thing and they occasionally get a glimpse of something related to what is happening in the inside. Plus the whole village occasionally mentions Facebook with a sort of `controversy'. This actually makes Facebook more attractive and motivating for people to join.
By the time you have already joined Facebook, you have already spent time putting information adding friends and you have now access to information about your friends. Now this is something that is hard to give up on.
We are interested in ourselves and the people close to us. It is extremely interesting for us to know where we are in relation to people we know. It is in our culture, ''where are we and where our friends are?''. ''Where are we and when will the polar ice caps melt?'' is not an important issue.
Social computing
I think my reactance to being a proper Facebook netizen is valid. And strengthened by many disadvantages in this network.
The idea that software helps you find like-minded individuals or people who share your interests or could inspire you is far more superior than simply adding all your acquaintances in a friend list and following their news. Software that serve a single function, like del.icio.us, last.fm, flickr, Zooomr, Wikipedia and have some means to find other users with similar interests offer a better main service.
It is also the context which blogs, flickr, wikipedia and other networks played in the short lifetime of the WWW is important and I am not sure that Facebook (or Second-Life) has any role in shaping the web.
Here is a quick comparison out of my head without making a detailed comparison:
- Facebook is not a proper image sharing and storage service. I don't think facebook will accept huge unlimited amounts of photos like Zooomr, nor does it bring together people interested in photography like Flickr groups. Google, Yahoo and other search services can't reach your photos. Your photos are still locked in the facebook network and inaccessible to other people.
- Facebook is not a blog. There is a notes section, but still, you don't have a permalink for your posts or others (so you can't link to other people's post, disabling the conversational style and linking that is very common in blogs) and search services can't access what you say. What you say is locked in the facebook network and inaccessible to other people.
- Facebook is not a mailing list. The google groups service and Yahoo! mailing lists are much more feature rich and could be set to be accessible to the whole www. And you can archive the emails you send and receive on your own hard drive. Still, facebook groups are not open for other people in the world to join and learn from. Locked in the facebook network and inaccessible to other people.
- Facebook is not a calendar application. [30boxes|http://30boxes.com] and [Google calendar|http://calendar.google.com] do a better job.
- Facebook is not email. Just because each contact of yours has a nice page with a photo compared to his listing in your address-book application, doesn't mean that you suddenly have to send him a "hello I miss you" BS!
- Facebook is not a [generic large scale message routing application|http://twitter.com/blog/2007/04/new-york-times-on-911.html] like twitter. The status messages on facebook are not sent over other networks like, SMS (the whole freaking world) or IM and is still locked in the network inaccessible to others.
Simply, facebook is just a reincarnation of [Orkut|http://orkut.com], [Hi5|http://hi5.com] and the same old fucked up concept of closed social networks that demonstrate nothing but it is a [small world after all(tm)|http://disneyland.disney.go.com/disneyland/en_US/parks/attractions/detail?name=itsasmallworldAttractionPage&bhcp=1] [phenomonon|http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_world_phenomenon]. People are all excited about it, because of the social pressures I discussed above. It is only a way for people to express their vanity online.
It is also very wrong to think that bringing back social ties with old friends and current friends will introduce you to new ideas, opportunities and the like. Spending time following the breadcrumbs of your friends will mean that you will end up getting all your information and ideas from just your friends. On the contrary if you spend more time on larger networks (like bloggers or photographers on flickr) with much weaker ties (topics of interest, tags) you will be exposed to more information, viewpoints, ideas, etc.. Such networks are not a form of reconciliation either. I am not going to add my friends list the people I hate and others who think I am an enemy will not add me.
In the end the power of a social network is a value driven by the people in it. And the amount of work to build communities, share information and organize activities with it. It is just disappointing to see people joining something closed, that is not inventive and crippled.
And I have way to much time to bash facebook!
- 7479 reads
tweet
Comments
That is what already happen,that people follow their friends online to try the new networks or new technologies and go on using it till they found that there's something wrong or there are some of the options that they need and don't find them in these networks.Hence they start to search about new network or accept the network they use even if it don't execute what all they need.
And some times it depends on the personal impression,like the blogs every one choose his/her the website to add the notes,photos,posts...,etc.
For me, My cousin tell me about facebook and I registered there.So far, I didn't find out all of it options.But I liked it may be because I didn't use any of the other networks you hint at.
2 January 2005
3 days 6 hours
eh, I keep on resending twitter invitations to people to get them into twitter. Some people are interested, others obsessed.
You have missed the point of Facebook. It is not to perform any of those tasks that you've listed, and rightly so, have found "better" incarnations of. The point of Facebook is the social network. The network is the medium by which all types of information can be transmitted. Some of it is useless, some of it is vain, and some of it is important. The same way we look at the printed word and see a difference between the tabloids and the London Review of Books, the same way Facebook has crap and very useful stuff at the same time.
I find Facebook immensely useful for publicizing political events as well as political issues. There has been a very very big explosion in accounts from Syria and Lebanon in recent weeks. Check out the following groups that have been formed:
"Summer in Syria 2007" for community service projects this summer: http://berkeley.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2247277210
"Alliance for Essential Liberties in the Middle East," a facebook spot for aelme.org: http://berkeley.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2242585717
"Migrant Workers in Lebanon and Syria: Also Human!," a group about an important issue and helping to drive traffic to migrant-rights.org: http://berkeley.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2261616916
"Arab Atheists," http://berkeley.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2234340652
So, Facebook can be extraordinarily useful. It can also be a waste of time. It is what we make of it.
2 January 2005
3 days 6 hours
thanks for the comment. but i disagree with you:
a. if facebook got blocked in for example syria; then those groups are inaccessible. (yes there are proxies) but compare this to blogs that are spread out over the whole www linked by hyperlinks and email. With content being quoted and replicated and a conversation spanning the net width and breadth takes place. (think the [free kareem campaign|http://freekareem.org])
b. it is the ''context'' of the social network is more important than the users or the links between them. although many emphasize that networks between people are interesting and the main value of a social network, yes they are the main value to understand and research those networks. facebook can not reach the "sum is more than the value of its part" kind of existance like blogs, wikipedia, etc..
c. any medium with n amount of users/reader can be used/hijacked (select whichever is appropriate) for political activism and publicizing anything. so such networks adds nothing new.
I’ve found out that Facebook recently kicked a woman off of Facebook, because she talked about breastfeeding her baby???
But, Facebook allow criminals, drug dealers & pedophiles to have Facebooks and they don’t delete them, why?
Yet, Facebook picked on this woman, for being the most important and most beautiful thing in the world…….a mother.
Pick on the weak and innocent why do you? Thats not America, thats not even Mexico, well Facebook picking on mothers is Anti-American, so you just made an enemy, Capt Wild Bill Kelso.
Very interesting post. Thank you!
I started pondering about FB especially in light of the recent acquisition of Microsoft. I see some of your points and then i think there are others. Slowly by slowly FB is loosening the barriers to entry and as of a few weeks ago companies and products can create profiles and link to people, which makes it a very powerful marketing machine. It seems to me that the FB aims to become all of what you named. If everybody will be on FB then it may be a more convenient one-stop-shop for all the applications. But there is a big question mark about this. Right now, i think it performs a very good role of an address book that you addressees are taking care of updating :)
Hey, hope you're still reading these comments, because you my friend are a fucking champion of the internet.
I've seen Facebook create a new level of internet addiction, making friends fall deeper and deeper into old cliques, and shutting off the rest of us (i.e. those without accounts) from seeing photos, event details, etc. Having been an avid user of Digg for a year, even in that short time I've seen it degrade with the influx of Facebook and pop-Web 2.0 users. With the world so fucked up, a story about Facebook changing status feeds or some shit makes #1 with over 5000 diggs? Goodbye.
If you ask me Facebook has officially ruined the internet.
2 January 2005
3 days 6 hours
I think it has lots of disadvantages. And it did change the way the internet is being used. And my criticisms are still valid.
But I think there is a lot to learn from it. I am sure that web 2.0 companies will copy and extend the features in Facebook that made it so popular and viral.
Facebook also responds to criticisms by its users and they are opening up a bit by bit. This was written before it enabled the 3rd party applications feature. Even though most of them are useless, some aggregate your usual online activity on sites like Flickr or your own blog and posts them to your profile. They also now send the body of the internal messages to your email, which is a good step if you are concerned with archiving your correspondence in one location.
We are yet to see what will happen in that area. It is a good thing that everyone is interested.
Facebook for the longest time was a mystery. I always wondered how they made their money. I see it now. But it hasn't stopped it growth. One million users a week. I'm there to keep track of a few friends but really its a glorifide junk mail service.
Oddly, it's not just kids. Adults count for almost half.
To me, FB is kind of like myspace for adults. Both are huge timewasters LOL!
Thanks for revealing Facebook for what it is: A giant, dull, over-hyped fad.
Facebook isn't more futuristic than any other closed-circuit application. It will probably be the playground for the older kids for another year, before something else, preferrably open-source-based and more useful, is launched.