Facebook and the "Social Graph" 200
itwbennett writes "Peter Smith is blogging about day 1 of the Facebook F8 conference and Mark Zuckerberg's vision for Facebook, which, as it turns out, is somewhat confusing: 'Zuckerberg clearly sees Facebook as a service. Facebook Connect (the name) is going away and being replaced by the Facebook Platform. "Share on Facebook" buttons are being replaced with "Like on Facebook" buttons. And Comcast is now called Xfinity. ... What does it all mean to the end user? There's a new API to fetch data from Facebook more easily, which sounds great, if only I could figure out why I'd want to do that. The overall tone of the keynote was that Facebook was serious business and they were going to build the Social Graph, a vast network of connections between people and the things they like. Zuckerberg was a man with a mission.'"
Re:Facebook (Score:3, Interesting)
Wrong. Evolution has no "purpose". Fixed: Those who were more predisposed to communicate one to one survived better.
Eventually, those who can communicate better in Social Networks may have better lives and consequentially they may dictate the human race evolution pattern.
Re:and again.... (Score:3, Interesting)
What security is there in the first place? You put up a private photo and expect that only your friends see it? And that maybe they're all too stupid to "save as" and re-post the photo elsewhere as a public photo?
The privacy settings are just feel-good measures. Post something good and unless you have no friends, someone's probably going to re-post it elsewhere. Of course, if people realized this all the "private" data on Facebook wouldn't be there, so you put up some basic crap that really doesn't do anything. Once it's on the 'net, it's out there, no matter the privacy settings. The only way to keep it off is to not post it in the first place.
To think otherwise is like those "image DRM," "document DRM" and "email DRM" type services out there claiming to keep your images, documents, and emails safe from third parties/leaks, and allowing things like "expiring" content.
Re:Facebook (Score:5, Interesting)
Facebook is pseudo social contact and I think it's actually making us more isolated as a people. We evolved to communicate one on one - not via a computer terminal.
See, here's the problem. Facebook isn't meant to replace social contact; it's meant to enhance it. When Zuckerberg and company began developing facebook (before the 'f' was capitalized, of course), their main impetus for doing so was to develop an easy way for people in Harvard to know and keep in contact with each other. Since college students would prefer anything online over in print, it made it a much better alternative than using the actual face-book that Harvard publishes every year (which I think they still do). On top of that, it provided a medium to allow people to contact each other easily. It was way better than digging through and through to find someone's email address, let alone their phone number. This obviously proved to be way more advantageous than finding people, as attested by the outrageous growth it's experienced since it went live in 2004.
Unfortunately, making communication easier naturally implies some form of increased isolation. However, would you really consider that mitigation a disadvantage if that simplification makes your life easier? Calling people makes it easier for me to not talk to the person face-to-face, but would you doubt that the phone is a terrible way to communicate with people because of that?
I own a Facebook profile, and have accumulated a ton of friends over the years on it. Now, in reality, I only know a handful of those folks...but having tons of Facebook friends sure makes it easy to find something to do on a quiet Friday/Saturday night if I'm up for it. Which, of course, makes it easy to make real acquaintances (or friends that stick around, if I get lucky).
Re:Facebook (Score:3, Interesting)
But you can say that about anything newer than a couple million years. We haven't evolved to use almost *none* of the stuff we use today.
Bollocks. Evolution is not the only way to adapt. We have adapted to millions of changes without evolving. Sure, it's always a bumpy ride 'till we adapt, but it'll be measures in some years, not millions.
If you sum all the technological evolutions in the 19 and 20th centuries, this doesn't come even close.
Re:Facebook (Score:4, Interesting)
I agree that FB communication is a poor surrogate for face to face in person communication, however speaking from an American societal view, allowing people to communicate freely without some of the awkwardness or judgment based on physical appearances may allow people to "connect" with others and exchange ideas more freely.
Group social interaction and the sharing of ideas is what drives our society and civilization. To imply that the only way to do that is via "facetime" is not only naive, but its a little ignorant.
Yes body language can account for a significant amount of "communication" but it can also impede the sharing of ideas.
Personally I see FB as the next logical evolution to online disucssion forums and IRC chatrooms. The body language issue is largely negated through the use of "emoticons" and other memes, not to mention things like skype which I can tell you from experience, is an EXCELLENT alternative to face to face communication.
Ultimately FB allows more communication easier which will naturally lead to more physical interactions. The idea that just because you met someone on the internet discounts the possibility of being "friends" in real life is foolish. It's really no different than meeting someone on the train or in the grocery store. They are just as likely to be an axe murderer as the person you met online. The only difference is the method by which you were initially introduced. The same social rules and personal safety habits still apply and I think THAT is the larger issue. The internet has invaded every part of our lives at all levels. As a species we are still adjusting and evolving to take advantage of the new tools and communication avenues that have recently been created.
Facebook is really a "casual gaming" site. (Score:4, Interesting)
Facebook does a good job of being a "social network" for keeping up with your real-world friends. But if that's all you use it for, Facebook doesn't make any money. It's all that "casual gaming" and "fanning" that brings in the revenue. Connecting up with a game or becoming a "fan" of some commercial content sucks all your private data into some game operator's system.
Google conquered a similar problem. Organic search makes Google no money. Google's business is being an ad agency.
Re:and again.... (Score:2, Interesting)
One of the company's key areas of expertise are in "data mining technologies".
Do you really *think* they're THAT concerned with your security, given the situation?
Why is anyone shocked that they don't want to make the world a better place, and would rather become very rich instead off their only asset.
What's shocking is that everyone knows Facebook does this crap and uses their service anyway. If consumers took more of an active interest in what corporations they supported then companies wouldn't get away with this crap.
how to define friendship: (Score:4, Interesting)
someone you actually spend time with
anyone you only share stuff on the internet with: they are just an acquaintance, not a friend
and if you insist that such acquaintances really ARE your friends, then you are a shallow person who has no real true friends, whether you realize it or not
lose facebook and gain real friends and real depth of character. or continue with the empty mask and the fake charade and the pointless surface level chatter and call that a "life". your choice
Re:Facebook (Score:3, Interesting)
You're saying two conflicting things as though they were the same thing.
When you say facebook "is" pseudo-contact, you're wrong. Facebook is a tool. Some people use it for pseudo-contact, and if those people didn't have FB to use for pseudo-contact it's hard to predict what they'd do instead. As you yourself note, others use FB in positive ways; so why hate the tool just because some poeple use it wrong?
Also, I find your opinion that FB is only for one-way broadcast communication interesting, because it is completely unsupported by fact. Yes, FB has facilities for that; it also has facilities for person-to-person two-way communiction, which work quite well.
Re:Facebook (Score:3, Interesting)
Or finding out some woman you don't know has three friends in common with you, all three of which don't know each other, two of which each live in different cities (and were previous boyfriends). This woman looks similar enough to me that we could be sisters. Cool and creepy, all at the same time.
I also found out one of my cousins (who I don't know that well) is a friend of one of my best friends.
I go dancing a lot, so once I start meeting more dancers and adding some of them, I get a whole list of other people I see but don't really know. I've met a few industry contacts that way, and found people who were into the same (other) hobbies I was. It is a great tool for meeting more people. Knowing you have something in common with someone makes it easier to break the ice with someone.
I also use facebook and my blog as a means of advertising my skills and interests. Personal marketing.