Ya know Loren, I’m kinda with ya. I remember when Friendster hit it took me a while to get on board because I thought it was just as gay as things like Livejournal, hotORnot, and other goofy places people “gather” on the web. I eventually joined Friendster due to peer pressure after like a few months. But then something strange happened…not long after I joined Friendster all the same real friends who endorsed it now were telling me to go to this thing called MySpace. WHY!?!?!? YOU ASSHOLES JUST TOLD ME TO SUE FRIENSDSTER!!!

Well, of course, i joined myspace. Then these things started popping up like weeds. Yes, they all “some” unique qualities, but in the end its the same crap.

I suppose, this is the social network addict’s version of a blog. I mean think about it, the average person is supposed to be able to just start a blog and POOF they are “connected”. But is that really true?

I started a blog and nearly 3 years later I get about 10 visits a day from search engines. And I’m a fucking internet marketer?!?!? The reality is, you get alot more attention on a social network. Everyone is consolidated in the “system” and then siloed off into groups. The problem, of course, is the attention comes from total idiots who only pay attention for a few seconds (and usually just to look through “naughty” profile pics)

I do have a facebook profile I started a year ago. I think I have two friends on it. The thing I noticed about facebook is how easy it is to
keep track of what your “friends” are doing in the network.

I think it would be a lot better if everyone just blogged and linked their blog into a network.

Wow, another long comment. I’m sorry Loren, I’m at work and bored and I don’t mean to flood your blog. But all the myspace comments in the world do not satisfy me as much as one long comment on a random 1938 blog post.

I suppose, to some degree, this is the “conversation” everyone keeps talking about. We are now having conversations about how we converse. Loren and I are “connecting” right now on a giant social network called THE INTERNET, conversing about how other people converse and connect. Meanwhile, those people are busy connecting and conversing while, for some strange reason, try to pass off a blog post and comment as conversation.

It’s not real conversation. It’s what modern conversation has evolved to. And it’s getting worse. It was all fun and games for so long this whole 2.0 thing. Now it has come to the point where there is too much content coming too fast. Now we have scalable mass-micro-conversations via twitter.

I have more to say…but why say it.

This jig is up.

Game over.

By Bruce Prokopets on Jun 13, 2007

To me, it’s greasy kid stuff.

By Vince Williams on Jun 13, 2007

Bruce,

I agree with you and I think your comment was well said, but I still think it’s gay.;-)

By Vince Williams on Jun 13, 2007

Your comment, I mean.

By Vince Williams on Jun 13, 2007

MyFace is just another dating hookup site for college kids. You may safely ignore it. It’s not [yet] a toilet of pseudobloggery ugliness and dysfunctionality like MySpace, but give it time.

Try adding colleagues and getting panel “how do you know this person” and have to click on Met Randomly then explain “met them via blogging or another socnet site like Twitter or JetSet Mix”.

FaceBook is vomit.

By vaspers the grate on Jun 13, 2007

Tripod, GeoCities, web malls, LiveJournal, Xanga, MySpace, Place4Friends, ah, FaceBook is yet another in a seemingly endless string of opportunitistic socnet finderies that end up being tossed aside for The Next Temporarily “Big” Thing.

Public is fickle. What tickles today irritates tomorrow.

By vaspers the grate on Jun 13, 2007

I didn’t know there was other stuff. I’m new to the human race. I weigh in at 80 lbs. but I hope to weigh more when I turn 9. My parents tell me I’ll weigh as much as them eventually when I’m 50 but that will take too long. Supposedly my glory years are ahead of me but I’m having fun now. But I was too little. Anyways, I like Facebook. Didn’t know there was other stuff.

By Timothy LaFleur on Jun 13, 2007

Vince,

My comment is not “out” yet and I was hoping to share that with my friends and family on my own terms. Now my comment is getting hit on by other gay comments.

By Bruce Prokopets on Jun 13, 2007

The best person to explain it would be danah boyd — I would recommend her paper if you want an in-depth explanation: http://www.danah.org/papers/AAAS2006.html

I would summarize it with the following: it’s not about dating, communication (IM/email are way better), and connecting (I don’t talk to most of the people I’m “friends” with) necessarily. It’s mostly about our obsession w/ self-image … it’s the new popularity contest — as you say, people connect w/ strangers, acquaintances more than they do with true friends. Your profile communicates who you want to be, not who you are. As danah boyd puts it, it’s a place to see and be seen — you show everyone how cool you are and basically stalk other people. I don’t exclude myself from this group: I’ve spent time choosing a profile pic, posting select pictures, and so on.

Facebook is particularly interesting because of news feed, platform, etc. News feed is basically a new form of gossip, social spam, what have you; it’s socially destructive (another danah boyd idea). I’ve explained what Platform will do on my blog, which was actually sparked by a comment you made at mesh:
http://cg.urbantwelve.com/?p=45

Hope this helps,
CG

By Chris on Jun 13, 2007

Step 1: College kid comes up with socnet concept for college students only.

Step 2: College kids catch on.

Step 3: Rest of the world feels left out even though there are a plethora of just-as-good alternatives, and all being part of the SAME network is what people want.

Step 4: Now that Facebook is open to everyone: Parent join to feel cool like their kids, professionals join as a free and more feature-filled alternative to LinkedIn, and everyone else out there joins in order to stay “connected” to all the people that truthfully, no one wants to stay connected to.

Step 5: Facebook releases the F8 platform so you can use all of the wonderful Web 2.0 services you’ve come to love, without ever leaving your Facebook profile.

… and that’s the story of Facebook

By Shaun Rotman on Jun 13, 2007

Timothy, please go back to Facebook immediately. This is not the place for you. I’ll be home later but for now stay at Facebook. Okay, Timothy? And if you clear cache I’ll know and immediately assume you were visiting non-Facebook sites.

By Jonathan LaFleur on Jun 13, 2007

Bruce,

I have a bi comment that would like to hook up with your gay comment.

I should warn you that all my comments ’swing’.

By Vince Williams on Jun 13, 2007

Facebook is actually the PERFECT social network. Think about it:

1) It doesn’t work unless you use your REAL name, instead of a “handle”
2) Therefore Facebook gets some REAL info that they can use for marketing purposes.
3) Then (like you said) you hook up with the people you already know and indicate HOW you know them.
4) Now Facebook has a map of your entire social circle and how it evolved
5) On top of all this, you also give it all the marketing stats like interests, books, groups, etc…
6) But the only difference is that Facebook know that these belong to “John Smith” and not just “webuser69,” and they know that John Smith has an BSc from Penn State and MA from Stanford, graduated in 2001, socializes only with others with post-grad education, and has a net income of 140k/year.
7) End result is that John enjoys the “privacy,” and Facebook gets more info on him than Google does.

Skeptical? Check it out: http://www.albumoftheday.com/facebook/

By CT Moore on Jun 13, 2007

That link: http://www.albumoftheday.com/facebook/ :is unabashed Genius. Who did the research?

By Dr. Anita Jones on Jun 13, 2007

You guys are right, but I find it all so depressing and warped.

Let’s face it, kids aren’t known for their foresight, and adults, well, at least kids have an excuse.

This is just the beginning.

But what I want to know is, are the kids convinced yet that that shit is who they are, is what matters? I mean all of that collected data, their “interests” etc…

hmmm…Jeck has anarchic tendancies and likes Tillamook Chocolate Peanut Butter Ice Cream. He appears to distrust ______, and has a strong allegiance to _________.

Maybe people are just bored. I’m not too concerned. Besides, I’d much rather sit on the porch on a summers evening eating ice cream shooting the breeze with the neighbors than, like, protest something. I’m serious.

I woke up feeling conspiratorial with these lyrics running through my head, which is still on fire:

Welcome my son, welcome to the machine.
What did you dream? its alright we told you what to dream.
You dreamed of a big star, he played a mean guitar,
He always ate in the steak bar. he loved to drive in his jaguar.
So welcome to the machine.

By Jeck on Jun 13, 2007

wtf? anyways, can someone please tell me who did the research into Facebook? We may have to obscure our origins because videos like the one mentioned here are frighteningly revealing. Next thing you know there will be an open source Facebook created by the EFF, or whatnot.

By Dr. Anita Jones on Jun 13, 2007

PS: What I would really like to know is, is it possible for people to have radical, so far as yet uncatagorized, uncharted, unprofiled hopes, dreams, beliefs etc; staying two steps ahead; and/or held so deep and so powerful that their entire person shimmers and dances with the life of it, making it impossible for the miners and collectors to get a proper handle on.

In other words, overwhelm them with Life. I’m channeling Octavio Paz today.

By Jeck on Jun 13, 2007

So the gist of that album of the day video is that Facebook is a front for the data-mining activities of the CIA and the Department of Defense.

This is news?

And of course all that information has great commercial value. The CIA got out of the cocaine business a long time ago.

I don’t like a site, such as album of the day, that jumps me with audio, and insults me with the puerile admonition that I’m lame because I don’t have JavaScript enabled.

I use the no/script add-on in FF.

I suppose the little girl voice-over is supposed to appeal to college-age students, but it has all the gravitas of Lindsay Lohan lecturing on physics for me.;-)

By Vince Williams on Jun 13, 2007

I don’t understand it either. However, I do know a couple of people who got good job offers as a result of their profiles on LinkedIn.

By Steve on Jun 13, 2007

Loren, I’ve been following you for about a month or so. And I have to say that this is one of your best. At least you’re asking good questions, and in a direct, open, kind of way. I like it!

I think that LinkedIn is useful because it’s focused on connections for business purposes. Focus helps.

By Bill Anderson on Jun 13, 2007

Did you know that albumoftheday is has New Dream Network (NDN) as a REGISTRAR? and that NDN was started by a group of college students attending HARVEY MUDD COLLEGE? And did you know that Harvey Mudd once tried to lead the Enterprise into an ASTEROID FIELD? And did you know that NDN lost an arbitration dispute for a domain name using the word SKYPE? And did you know that 1938media.com has its DNS records at Dreamhost nameservers and that Dreamhost is a hosting company owned by NDN? Wow! I’m not sure if I should ever comment on Loren’s blog again!

By Marc Farley on Jun 14, 2007

MySpace is your college dorm room door.

It’s the image of yourself you wish to project to the casually interested.

Facebook is a more refined and selective version of the same.

By Erik Schwartz on Jun 14, 2007

I always learn something new from your posts-and comments-therefrom.

By flic on Jun 19, 2007