“We think almost every product is better when you can experience it with the people you care about so over time we expect almost all of these products should naturally become social.” – Mark Zuckerberg
Whether or not you think almost every product — TVs, cars, pets, refrigerators, running shoes — is better when it’s “social,” will probably determine your gut feeling about Facebook’s long-term prospects.
Tag Archives: Facebook
Not my only option
The alternative to Facebook and mobile apps is not a pure, ideal world where everything is free and your privacy is always assured. I’m aware that the free platform I’m using to write this blog is owned by an enormous information corporation whose privacy practices are not always stellar. But it’s not my only option. There are alternative applications that serve the exact same purpose, and will produce the same results. This blog is free for anyone, anywhere, on any device. You don’t have to buy a special device, or join Blogger, or register your personal data to access it.
The same claim
[T]he way Facebook works, everyone on your list has the same claim on your attention. So if I made a joke that had a ten-year-history in my family, someone whom I had never met, and who could arguably be the friend of an old acquaintance of a neighbor of a cousin, made a comment about not getting it. It became necessary to explain the joke, which took away some of its humor. Or if I posted a link to an article, along with a line that I thought was clearly sarcastic, someone took it literally. I had to temper the sarcasm, which took away its bite. If I was busy and did not get a chance to respond to an incendiary comment, someone was bound to take it as an endorsement.
Captured
In a feature that Facebook thinks is great — and will thrill law enforcement and divorce lawyers — every conversation will be captured for posterity, unless users delete specific messages or entire conversations. Do you assume that the people with whom you communicate are saving every text message and IM? You’d better.
High School
Facebook: it’s all about putting you back in high school.
Creepy by definition
So what? These are not private sites, anybody can read them. —gloeden31
How is this #creepy? If one wants to discuss skin issues openly, one should be more than happy to have a skin-issue company actually observe the discussion. —EthanPeter
@EthanPeter: Because reading blogs is creepy by definition. —skahammer
How DARE they view information that I posted publicly for anyone to read.
THIS is an outrage! —LUV_TRUK
Comments in response to a Gawker post titled
“Unilever Is Listening to You Talk About Your Skin Problems.”
Worst
It should no longer be a surprise how Facebook reveals the absolute worst in people, right?
—Ms. Avignon
in comments @ Jezebel
Zuckerberg
What hath Mark Zuckerberg wrought? Only a few years ago, his Web site’s purpose was to help college students see who was hot. Now it’s the primary way for adopted children to announce their existence to unknowing relatives; for bored, married, middle-aged people to start affairs with their high-school classmates; and now for elderly parents to monitor their offspring’s every “like.”
The Remainder Table 