Comments on: Facebonked http://techcafeteria.com/blog/2009/01/10/facebonked/ Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:23:03 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Peter Campbell http://techcafeteria.com/blog/2009/01/10/facebonked/comment-page-1/#comment-7136 Peter Campbell Sun, 11 Jan 2009 02:23:00 +0000 http://techcafeteria.com/blog/?p=118#comment-7136 ha! Okay, that's a bit bizarre, as I'm a big internet user and advocate -- I think I even sent an email to a mailing list we're both on the other day making the case for internet use to one of our more Luddite friends. My view of Facebook is of someone who has been doing online social networking for over 20 years, starting back in the BBS days with Fidonet. I really appreciate being able to keep in touch with people, share links and info, and have good conversation. From Fidonet to online mailing lists and more private social networks, I've been constantly active online. When I joined FB, I immediately connected with 40 or 50 of my nonprofit tech friends, and that really influenced my negative opinion, because I already had numerous places where I was having meaningful conversations with that crowd (mostly NTEN/Techsoup forums and our various blogs), so the sum of activity on Facebook appeared to be the applications. That really put me off. In addition, Facebook had just gone through their first big scandal, implementing a program that posted a message to your network when you bought something at Amazon or Good Guys. They were clearly willing to take great risks with their user's privacy without giving it a lot of thought. So I can see now that Facebook can be used in a less annoying and more useful fashion, but all of that can be done other places, and I do it other places with the primary community that I connected with there. The issue now is that Facebook has become the network that has broken through to all of our mutual friends, who were probably put off by the immature nature of MySpace and not engaged by the blogosphere in the way that someone more techy to begin with might be (comfort with RSS is pretty much a prerequisite for serious involvement in the blogging community). Were I approaching Facebook as someone with little or no prior online networking experience, I'd be far more excited by it and forgiving of the flaws. But I'm coming from knowing that there are far less annoying ways to communicate online. ha! Okay, that’s a bit bizarre, as I’m a big internet user and advocate—I think I even sent an email to a mailing list we’re both on the other day making the case for internet use to one of our more Luddite friends.

My view of Facebook is of someone who has been doing online social networking for over 20 years, starting back in the BBS days with Fidonet. I really appreciate being able to keep in touch with people, share links and info, and have good conversation. From Fidonet to online mailing lists and more private social networks, I’ve been constantly active online. When I joined FB, I immediately connected with 40 or 50 of my nonprofit tech friends, and that really influenced my negative opinion, because I already had numerous places where I was having meaningful conversations with that crowd (mostly NTEN/Techsoup forums and our various blogs), so the sum of activity on Facebook appeared to be the applications. That really put me off. In addition, Facebook had just gone through their first big scandal, implementing a program that posted a message to your network when you bought something at Amazon or Good Guys. They were clearly willing to take great risks with their user’s privacy without giving it a lot of thought.

So I can see now that Facebook can be used in a less annoying and more useful fashion, but all of that can be done other places, and I do it other places with the primary community that I connected with there. The issue now is that Facebook has become the network that has broken through to all of our mutual friends, who were probably put off by the immature nature of MySpace and not engaged by the blogosphere in the way that someone more techy to begin with might be (comfort with RSS is pretty much a prerequisite for serious involvement in the blogging community). Were I approaching Facebook as someone with little or no prior online networking experience, I’d be far more excited by it and forgiving of the flaws. But I’m coming from knowing that there are far less annoying ways to communicate online.

]]> By: chris http://techcafeteria.com/blog/2009/01/10/facebonked/comment-page-1/#comment-7135 chris Sun, 11 Jan 2009 02:02:02 +0000 http://techcafeteria.com/blog/?p=118#comment-7135 It seems like a lot of your Facebook Friends have been friends from your youth... (I haven't checked your friends lately so that may have changed..) It seems to me to make sense to continue with Twitter as that tends to be more of your current work/tech crowd while gritting your teeth and attempting to embrace Facebook for the 'past' reconnections... They are different groups and fulfill different 'needs'. I totally agree about the applications.. they are data mining scams... Ignore them all. Probably half my FB Friends don't use them... If somebody is wondering why you keep ignoring their invitations they will probably ask you... and that opens an opportunity to teach them about data mining. Sure, Facebook has it's dark side... but sometimes you sound to me like the folks who use to say "the internet..! the only thing anybody uses that for is to look at porn" It seems like a lot of your Facebook Friends have been friends from your youth… (I haven’t checked your friends lately so that may have changed..) It seems to me to make sense to continue with Twitter as that tends to be more of your current work/tech crowd while gritting your teeth and attempting to embrace Facebook for the ‘past’ reconnections… They are different groups and fulfill different ‘needs’.

I totally agree about the applications.. they are data mining scams… Ignore them all. Probably half my FB Friends don’t use them… If somebody is wondering why you keep ignoring their invitations they will probably ask you… and that opens an opportunity to teach them about data mining.

Sure, Facebook has it’s dark side… but sometimes you sound to me like the folks who use to say “the internet..! the only thing anybody uses that for is to look at porn”

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