Biz Stone, I think is right that the phenomenon called Twitter is really very analogous to birds – for example flocks of starlings – wheeling about in the sky.
But I’m not sure I want to be a bird flocking where all the other birds flock together. Twitter certainly has its uses as all sorts of people have pointed out, and while I have an account, I’m not sure that I can put the time and energy into it to become one of the real twitterati. Nor that sure I have enough things I want to say in 140 characters or less.
I’ve certainly got a bigger beef against Facebook – there have been so many security leaks and so many cockups where people have lost jobs, have entered emotional spats and the like, as countless as the starlings in this Youtube video.
I met a friend yesterday who uses Facebook. She tells me that she’s had requests for friendship from people who she doesn’t really like – she keeps her Facebook friends confined to people who really are friends. I’ve taken a different approach – anyone who wants to be my friend can be my friend – that’s why I seem to have 515 friends. Of course it’s generally reckoned that a human being can only have five or six close friends at the most, so 510 of these people are mostly contacts and acquaintances. I haven’t a clue who some of them are – and they probably feel exactly the same about me.
Facebook, however, has some distinctly useful features which is, no doubt, why it is compelling. I’ve managed to find people who I’ve been out of contact with for years – and it’s also a very useful way to mail people without having to search through my email client.
I sort of like it when it suggests friends to you on the basis of mutual friends. Some enemies or other inappropriate people pop up all the time, and it’s very tempting to me when I’ve had a pint of beer or six to invite them to be my friend. Or what if you have two FB friends who hate each other? That’s a diplomatic nightmare. Unfriending is very dangerous, it seems to me – it’s really a declaration of war.
I don’t think that I can agree with Saul Klein, speaking at Silicon Valley comes to Oxford earlier this week that five years from now Facebook will have trounced Google. The two are fundamentally different kinds of things, with different business models. Google is a bit dangerous too, but for very different reasons from FB.. And Linkedin is for the grown ups, while I do actually think there will always be a place for Twitter. Plus I liked Biz Stone – he has a sense of humour. He quipped that he went to see The Social Network at a cinema.
On his own.
''Joel'' says, re Where is FB currently banned:
Facebook is indeed banned in Vietnam (where I currently am), but as you rightly state, it's not an aggressive ban as in China.
Most places I've been where it's blocked here have not blocked the mobile apps, so I've been able to access it regularly on my Touch without any kind of VPN.
A FB friend, expat Canadian male, 45, in Taiwan, PR writer, tells me:
''Know something interesting, Danny? My email correspondence now is
basically with business contacts, you - and everyone I know in China.
Facebook's advantage over email is consolidation. All your ...contacts
in one place. And now that just about everyone's on it, and now that
people are into the habit of automatically looking up anyone whose
business card they ever get on Facebook, and because Facebook kind of
offers the opportunity for people of the opposite (and same) sex to be
on the same platform but detached as preferred at the same time, I
have *almost* dispensed with my email contacts altogether. The
exception is business contacts - which people like you become if email
is the medium. I only check my Yahoo! email anymore to see what
Facebook messages I've gotten - and I only correspond with my email
contacts when I have free time at the office - like now. I'm not sure
whether I'm that much different from most digitally connected people
nowadays. My Facebook participation is minimal, though. Unlike the
majority of people on it, I've disabled all games. I've disallowed
people from posting on my "Wall". I never post public updates anymore,
because that's just a time sink. You get sucked into discussions and
arguments you simply don't give a damn about. Facebook should be
called "In-Your-Facebook". But if I make a video of my beach
photography, or if I want to post a photo album for all friends and
family alike to get a sense of where I'm at at any particular time,
Facebook is fantastic. Or, if I quickly want to send versions of a
certain message to various people in my social circles, I can just
type in their names, paste in my text, alter it slightly, and push the
Send button, one after another after another. Also, if, say, Cafebar
wants to remind me of an event, or if my friends who run a café want
to let me know that they're having a special on draft beer on Sunday,
they can do that too.
The one-stop appeal of Facebook makes the site, quite aside from the
serious qualms I have with it, indispensible. One final thing I should
add, while I'm rambling anyway, is that there has occurred a rift
between Facebook users that don't use Twitter, and Twitter users that
don't use Facebook (i.e., those who neither use both nor neither).
Even if those people had previously communicated by email, they tend
to fall out of touch completely. Out of sight and out of mind. I find
Twitter wholly drivelish, if I can use such a word. And I can
understand why Twitterers might not take to Facebook. In the meantime,
I find sending Facebook contacts private messages, which arrange
themselves in easily readable threads, my communications medium of
choice. That being said, I compose messages in Notepad and paste them
into Facebook, because it's happened to me on a few occasions that a
message has gone to Message Heaven before being sent. Aside from that,
Facebook is everything email is except a medium to send lots of
individual files to individual people. The site isn't perfect, and I
have to say I absolutely hate its interface and its lack of
transparency. But because a critical mass of people are on it, not
being on it would make me feel like the only kid on the block without
a TV :)
''Interesting....
I am on FB ....but don't use it at all. ....Mainly that is because I dislike everything about its corporate practices"
If Zynga ever changes its business model to run stand alone clients, FB is hosed. Maybe it could merge with friendster.