OK - so now everybody feels that there is something wrong with Facebook and maybe other big social networking sites. There is the widespread feeling that there were better online times. This article did nothing to further my understanding of this subject - it is just repeating stuff we already know.
The author's main points seem to be that:
1. Facebook has similarities to AOL, and AOL's bubble burst
2. There was a bubble in the late '90s therefore there must be a bubble now
3. Goldman is investing in Facebook, Goldman invested in other bubbles, therefore the investment must be bad
4. Social is a fad
Nothing on why Facebook specifically is doing a bad job and why someone else is positioned to upset them. Not much evidence at all if you ask me. You could write the article with 90% of the content the same and replace "Facebook" with "Google" or "Apple" or "Microsoft"
For some reason all this makes me grind my teeth. I'm not a Facebook apologist, and I definitely don't side with the 'FB is utter shit' camp, but it just seems like articles like this, and so much of the discussion they generate, totally sail past the point of what the rise of social networking (and the rise of these dissatisfactions) signifies.
This article: http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/willheaven/100092236/is-th... the article the link leeches off, is more fleshed out but also has some 300 comments. Most of it is inane but somewhere in there in all the shit people are talking and all the haughty know-it-all declarations of what is and isn't worthwhile, and what will and will not occur in the future, there's something really significant encapsulated about how our society is changing, and how Facebook and the internet is linked in to that change. There's a big clue in all this discussion - but these newspaper 'experts' sure as shit aren't going to point it out for us.
The article neglects that facebook is always looking to expand its feature set, with things like email (on top of existing chat) and music [1].
Also neglected are statistics pertaining to new account activations and account reactivations (secondary and post-secondary students make up a giant portion of the user base, and many make it a habit to deactivate temporarily during exam time).
This article just feels overly sensational, giving no credence to counter-arguments.
May be, but I always liked most of the articles posted because they bring insightful remarks. Obviously this article falls short.
Don’t whine about stupid things with Facebook. Tell us things we don’t know, that we’re not aware of, or bring powerful analysis to things that truly matter.
Yeah, that article was all over the place. The only thing I could get from a first reading was that Facebook did something wrong - just using the anti-facebook sentiment I guess
The title is sort of inflammatory, but did you read the article? It's an observation about peoples' behavior on Facebook and how it has changed. She's not saying "Facebook is Boring! Down with Facebook!" She's saying "I loved all the status updates! Why are they gone? Where did they go?"
The article is basically saying that the research is pretty poor because Facebook is not sharing the information or creating articles that blurry the actual conclusions.
Every single day it seems like a new article comes out - maybe the problem is that Facebooks business model is destined to fail if people scrutinize what it’s actually doing.
The article tries to make the reader feel bad about Facebook by pointing out how the site can create negative emotions. However, the author does not seem to be aware of the fact that he is doing the same thing.
It seems like this author has several unrelated points:
* some people post boring updates;
* it's easy to miscommunicate emotional content;
* some people overshare;
* SNSes collapse our multiple public masks (heavy metal and kittens) into one;
* dumping people is more painful.
They also include a single sentence about the advantages of SNS web sites.
So what's the article about? Why did they feel the need to write a 1300-word editorial about every negative aspect of social networking sites? It seems weird to devote 1300 words to the negatives and one sentence to the positives.
The author's experience is fairly different from mine. My Facebook signal-to-noise ratio is somewhere around -5 to -10 dB. Here are the most recent interesting bits from my Facebook stream (just the front page):
* A friend's youngest daughter is about to go off to college. Major life transition for him.
* Another friend, who's mostly famous for his anti-spam efforts, is DJing at a community radio station I hadn't heard of before. Add to my mental list of friends involved in community radio.
* A new online video site called Magma has launched and been recommended by someone trustworthy.
* Some details on my ex-stepson's microbrewing experiments. Sounds like he's getting pretty serious about microbrewing, and would be a good person to ask if I have questions.
* Another friend, who I thought was going to be at Foo Camp this week, is still in Montreal. Maybe Foo Camp hasn't started yet? I can't find information on the web about it.
* Another friend has decided to get a Singer 6510 sewing machine because the less expensive machines weren't worthwhile. Useful data point for the next time I buy a sewing machine.
* My sister's cousin just visited San Francisco to visit family — but apparently my sister wasn't included in the outing. Maybe she was busy?
* Another friend is having a hard time recovering from surgery a few weeks ago, and can't type. He's not finding Dragon Naturally Speaking useful for coding.
* Another friend is starting her first day of work as a full-fledged lawyer. In Puerto Rico.
* Another friend has just joined a chorus. I didn't know she sang.
None of these are so urgent as to justify a phone call to tell me about them. But they are all very interesting to me, and it's highly beneficial (I think) for me to know things like that about what's going on in my friends' lives.
And then there's the opportunity to respond to people — just to remind them that I'm thinking about them sometimes, but also sometimes to offer my advice or thoughts, or to let them know I appreciated what they had to say.
I’ve read this short article carefully twice now and I still find myself trying to guess why Facebook would do this. I conclude it’s not a good article.
It's a great site (outline). I wouldn't bother reading the article. It's basically the same as all others posted in the last 2 weeks re: FB with nothing new added.
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