Facebook – yet another useless social network?
July 24, 2007 1:31 pm GeneralI don’t get Facebook. I’ve tried, but I don’t get it.
It doesn’t have the CV/business network thing going for it like LinkedIn does. It doesn’t have the “centralise your contacts” thing going for it like (say) Plaxo. It doesn’t have the usefulness of centralised bookmarks like del.icio.us or uploading photos or videos and sharing them (flickr, YouTube).
It appears to me to be a second Orkut, with some features taken away, and a bunch of useless stuff added.
I’m sure I’m missing something, but I’m definitely getting similar vibes to Matt Asay. That’s several hours of my life I’m never going to have again…
July 24th, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I think they’re basically a MySpace competitor (which is in the top 5-6 websites by the way). If you never “got” MySpace then Facebook won’t make much sense either.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:39 pm
I used it a lot until recently. It is a nice, well-controlled context to socialise in. Or was. It lets you interact with your friends in a public manner. It protects your privacy fairly well by segregating users into regional, academic, or professional networks, and requires explicit consent to extend beyond those borders. It’s a nice, centralised place to see what your friends are up to (I do not have to visit N blogs or websites), it lets you participate in groups (public messaging through walls), strengthens shallow social connections (I might otherwise never talk to you, but now passively I get the odd update on your life that might motivate a brief maintenance of our acquaintance), advertise your state in life outside of telling those you think might be directly interested (and outside of your IM nickname). Also, the photo tagging is excellent. I suppose you can also use it to learn more about your friends by witnessing their interactions with others.
The best things have been simplicity and privacy. However, if very few of your existing friends already use it, if you do not have social circles you can enhance through Facebook, or you hate their new applications API that has slowly made FB profiles more annoying than MySpace pages to browse, then I suppose it is not applicable to you.
It obviously has use, as millions use it and benefit greatly from it. Up until recently, I did too. I have found it best for maintaining existing relationships, as the social structure maps more to your existing one with fewer opportunities for growth within itself than other social networks.
Cheerio, and thank you very much for all your work in GNOME 🙂
July 24th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
I think its original target (university students) might make some of it clear. For a (residential) university student, it is essentially your social memory and asynchronous gathering place. In fact, if you tell new students that employers sometimes check their Facebook (which is true), they frequently gently freak out.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:44 pm
hi
i’ll give my view on what facebook is useful for:
you know those people who you recognise but you never really speak to, if ever.
the people who you’d probably like to get to know, but dont have any real reason to talk to.
well, on facebook, its less of a social taboo to step outside your immediate circle of friends
these are people that you generally wouldn’t fire off an email to randomly to say hi.
its ok to go to your friends list of friends, find someone you recognise and send them a message
to summarise, facebook is useful not to keep track of your own friends, but moreso to get to know your friends friends and make them yours too.
matt.
July 24th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
I’ve been trying it out over the last couple of days and would tend to agree with you. Compared to LinkedIn it seems very messy and lacking in polish
Michele
July 24th, 2007 at 3:14 pm
[…] thought I would chime in on Dave’s post since I had the oposite experience with Facebook. Ever since I started using it, it has been […]
July 24th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Dave, I don’t get it either, other than I’ve caught up with a handful of friends from school and university through facebook – so it definitely has the critical mass of people.
One thing I’ve noticed is that it provides a structure for interactions with other people whereas the tools I’d rather use (email, blog, flickr, etc) are less structured; e.g. a friend who I’ve been pestering to start a blog for years and who always says ‘I don’t have time’ or some other excuse signed up to Facebook a couple of weeks ago and now has a load of friends, daily postings, photos, etc, etc. And this person is a programmer / IT consultant so it’s not like he’s afraid of technology, but more like he’s afraid of an empty textbox – facebook puts and easy ‘not so serious’ structure on the interactions so people can dive right in.
I do find it weird how (intelligent) people quite happily live in the roach motel – a friend from school who caught up with me still insists on using the built in messaging and other tools rather than email, even though I sent him links to my email, blog, and flickr account. Totally baffling.
I guess the clever thing about facebook is that it is a jack of all trades and master of only one: having all your friends already there. Photo sharing is no way as good as flickr, smugmug, zoomr, etc but it’s easy and instantly shared to your friends, the ad system isn’t as good as Craigslist, but again simple and instantly shared, the messaging is web based mail of 8 years ago (with a single ajax effect) but it’s simple to message your friends and seems free of spam so far.
I was never cool enough to get invited to Orkut when it first came out so I can’t compare the two, but that’s where Facebook differs (now they’ve opened it up) – you don’t need to be cool to be on it.
Michele: I agree, compared to LinkedIn Facebook seems very messy and lacking in polish (and MySpace is even worse), however my living room is messy and lacking polish compared to the houses in ‘Home & Garden’ and other design magazines – I think some of the messiness is what appeals to people as it’s obviously personal and something used by humans.
July 25th, 2007 at 2:18 am
Facebook, not as scummy as myspace or bebo!
not much of a claim to fame
July 25th, 2007 at 2:21 am
@Paul Cooper
the tagging system on facebook is really good.
do others offer that too?
July 25th, 2007 at 5:02 am
It was incredibly useful once it caught on during my college years. It was the way to keep track of people, look up contact information, quietly learn the major or whatnot of someone you had a crush on, plan and organize events, and keep friends updated on where you were and what you were doing. The structure was designed to make it easy to have all your college-centered personal info up. It was a great student directory.
However, I can’t speak to it as a general social network; I certainly don’t use it as much now that I’m out of college.
July 25th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
The genius of facebook is that it took a look at a specific population (college students) and created an environment in which they can connect, contact and be aware of each other, schedule events, and easily share photos of each other. The challenge for them is how to extend the environment to a larger online population.
July 25th, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Useless? Depends on your definition.
I use sites like these to keep track of my friends. All my friends are on Facebook; they are also on Myspace. Facebook has multiple layers of privacy, so that all my friends can find my phone number if they lose it and I can find theirs. Myspace pages frequently take more time to load than my browser itself. Facebook pages might have a few thumbnailed photos.
And the rest of these sites? Nobody I know uses them.
July 29th, 2007 at 8:57 pm
Rule #1 of Facebook: Don’t talk about Facebook.
Seriously though, nearly everyone I know at university uses it. It’s like a second email account; something so basic that you wonder how you managed to survive without it.
Because everyone uses it, it’s almost a digital interface for the real world. It’s more social than email simply because it’s more public and out in the open.
Dunno, that’s my take on it.