The Era of Facebook Is an Anomaly 260
An anonymous reader writes "Speaking to The Verge, author and Microsoft Researcher Danah Boyd put words to a feeling I've had about Facebook and other social networking sites for a while, now: 'The era of Facebook is an anomaly.' She continues, 'The idea of everybody going to one site is just weird. Give me one other part of history where everybody shows up to the same social space. Fragmentation is a more natural state of being. Is your social dynamic interest-driven or is it friendship-driven? Are you going there because there's this place where other folks are really into anime, or is this the place you're going because it's where your pals from school are hanging out? That first [question] is a driving function.' Personally, I hope this idea continues to propagate — it's always seemed odd that our social network identities are locked into certain websites. Imagine being a Comcast customer and being unable to email somebody using Time Warner, or a T-Mobile subscriber who can't call somebody who's on Verizon. Why do we allow this with our social networks?"
Laughable (Score:5, Insightful)
"None ever used this thing that wasn't available before, therefore (loads of rationalizations)"
Re:Laughable (Score:5, Interesting)
The basic premise, that it is an anomaly for us to come together into a common social space, is so ridiculous that I have to wonder what her agenda is for making such a blatantly false claim.
People came together from their community to the marketplace to socialize. People came together at church every single Sunday.
Beyond the reaches of the individual community, people of almost every faith used to come together for pilgrimage, allowing them to socialize with other members of their faith from far away places and become more worldly and less ignorant. This was considered a moral duty.
The point isn't to go where people who are your friends are, or to go to places where people who are into the same hobbies. The point is to grow as a human being by leaving your comfort zone.
The real anomaly is in the walls that keep us from knowing each other. It keeps us weak, powerless and under control.
Re: (Score:5, Interesting)
> by leaving your comfort zone.
How is socializing with other members of your faith leaving your comfort zone? Church IS your comfort zone. So is the marketplace where you gather with FRIENDS.
>The real anomaly is in the walls that keep us from knowing each other.
Like the one that surrounds facebook, and the walls within facebook that prevent certain interactions between its members.
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as in meatspace, language is still a powerful barrier. Though at least there are tools to try to address that.
Re:Laughable (Score:5, Insightful)
The basic premise, that it is an anomaly for us to come together into a common social space, is so ridiculous that I have to wonder what her agenda is for making such a blatantly false claim.
People came together from their community to the marketplace to socialize. People came together at church every single Sunday.
You don't get it. The point is that the entire world didn't come together at the same marketplace, or the same church building, or live in the same city for that matter. It's unnatural for humans to all be in the same spot to socialize, we rather split up in groups of manageable size. That's the premise of the author. Now whether that's true or false remains to be seen, but at least understand the point the article is trying to make.
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We've had "specialized" online fora (eg: /.) for a long time; the appeal of FB is that it crosses those boundaries to connect with new friends (and reconnect with old ones) in a single, convenient venue. I think a more pertinent question would be: Why has FB kept growing while MySpace died on the vine (arguably, killed by FB)? What is FB doing differently?
There can be only one. (Score:5, Interesting)
Two words: Network effects.
Facebook succeeds not because it's anything special, but because a critical mass of the population uses it, and each person can independently decide the shape of their "community". If I meet someone new in the real world, and want to keep up with what's going on in their life, odds are we're both on Facebook. Nobody else offers that. A new competitor could start that was 100x better than Facebook in every technological way, but until they reached a critical mass of users nobody would care.
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Yeah, after a certain point, the network effect takes over. That doesn't answer how Facebook got to be big enough for network effect to dominate. Or maybe network effect started at the beginning, because it was school-by-school.
In fact, MySpace is only about 6 months newer, and I think was dominant for a while. It seems like maybe Facebook grew from people becoming dissatisfied with MySpace. I don't think we have seen a similar service growing considerably from dissatisfied Facebook users.
We used to have so
Re: Laughable (Score:3)
That's easy.
Facebook tricked people into thinking of it as a highly private platform, somewhere safe to use your real name and share pictures with your mom.
People don't remember that, for the most part, but that really was the reason for their success... the only novel thing they did.
Re:Laughable (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, whoever wrote that does not realize that Facebook is not a site or social space but a service.
So that argument could just as well be used against a telephone, postal service, roads... with equal relevance and correctness.
Re:Laughable (Score:4, Funny)
The basic premise, that it is an anomaly for us to come together into a common social space, is so ridiculous
Is Facebook a "single space? I thought it had groups.
Facebook is just a medium of communication - like talking using a mouth. Everybody used mouths before and nobody thought it was weird.
I have to wonder what her agenda is for making such a blatantly false claim.
She's just having a massive cognitive failure because nobody's using a Microsoft space and her job is to justify that.
It's a bit like Zune: It was a perfectly good piece of hardware so why did nobody want it? Why did they think Steve Ballmer "squirting" his Zune at people was wrong? It sounded like fun to her...
Does not compute.
Re:Laughable (Score:4, Insightful)
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No, he is right, the rise of _not the first_ social network which wanted your email password to suck up your contact list was an anomaly.
He does not likely admit that another anomaly is the disfunctional windows OS, the unusable as storage ipod, the locked down iphones and androids, secure boot.
Not that I expect consumers to make informed choices since they are badly influenced by advertising and doctored stats.
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Sure they do, because otherwise they'd have huge anti-trust charges leveled against them. But have you dealt with BIOS configuration? It's not something non-technical users should generally be doing, and UEFI is even worse. So MS managed to largely kill off the threat of Linux LiveCDs just as they were reaching the point of being a real challenge. Used to be you could hand someone sick of Windows a LiveCD that would let them easily test out an alternative, and in many cases gracefully install as a dual-b
It's called (Score:2)
Re:It's called (Score:4, Interesting)
A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
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tl;dr Not playing only works if your friends don't use Facebook as a primary communication medium.
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Right. I remember those days. It was back when everyone was on Yahoo!What made Yahoo! chat rooms work was that you could go there and find people
I really doubt that. Newsgroups are as old as the internet itself. And talkd and IRC are also quite old. Waaaay before Yahoo.
What makes Facebook work is that is where everyone is now.
True.
This is called "network effect"
This is EXACTLY what you want from a social network. Or you'd have skype, google talk and the remaining crap to talk with people. A niche network - the shit G+ was catering to when it was launched (by arrogant nerds for nerds) - will not fly. Internet IS NOT for the elite. And Facebook understands that.
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Right. I remember those days. It was back when everyone was on Yahoo!What made Yahoo! chat rooms work was that you could go there and find people
I really doubt that. Newsgroups are as old as the internet itself. And talkd and IRC are also quite old. Waaaay before Yahoo.
What makes Facebook work is that is where everyone is now.
True.
This is called "network effect"
This is EXACTLY what you want from a social network. Or you'd have skype, google talk and the remaining crap to talk with people. A niche network - the shit G+ was catering to when it was launched (by arrogant nerds for nerds) - will not fly. Internet IS NOT for the elite. And Facebook understands that.
No instead facebook became the site for you grandma go and comment on your every post between photo stalking your account, your aunt with a flashgame obsession to invites you to every zinga game and your brother in law to repost every out their political wack job theory the planet has ever heard of. Making the web accessible is good having single person everyone you have ever met in one place is a very bad thing. we need multiple places to meet different people. Your not going to hang out with grandam at th
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Remember BBSes and Fidonet?
Believe me, it was a HUGE deal when one of the local BBSes got an ISDN frame-relay to the Internet. We could do IRC instead of just teleconferencing. Ironically they were hastening their own demise through giving us access to global content.
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ou realize that people were talking online and sharing pictures, personal updates, etc, on the internet long, long before Facebook ever existed, right?
Yeah. Except geocities, gopher, thematic webrings, personal home pages, personal gnome pages (wink wink gifs) and whatnot. And all of that required a browser, some html knowledge, a domain name (optional), some blink tags and the actual content. So you could congratulate your colleague in his newborn son (6 months old by the time you find out) as he's leaving the company (that's how you found out, he has a own domain email!). That appeals to the working class, why not? "Here, have some tech - in 6 months, y
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no current system/application/internet thing exists to make the experience of 'you and all of your friends visiting the same varying virtual destinations a social experience'
Where the f*** did you read that in my comment?
Facebook only offers you your info for sale, and a way to consistently communicate in recognizable patterns globally through a single identity, not a real social experience
So does your provider, and everybody else. What do I care that my music listening preferences are blasted into the world and data mined? Do you know what trends are? They are data-mined :). And as "social experience", I choose to have a life offline. Like most users do.
modern research (http://www.scientificamerican.com/
I'd argue that scientific american is neither a modern and an acccurate reference when talking about social networks. But I get a bit bitchy about details.
I'd be willing to bet that what our brains are currently tuned to interpret as a truly "social"
Brains process patterns. Proximity (spec
Re: It's called (Score:3)
"Brains process patterns. Proximity (specially multi-sensorial) is a pattern, much more fullfilling than online experiences..."
I wouldn't be so sure about assigning fulfillment levels there. Recent studies have shown that folks get the same "brain happy" from regularly watching the same TV shows with familiar characters as they do from spending time with friends in real life. Us assigning greater benefit to doing so with real people as opposed to television characters is purely a societal imposition, no
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i shouldn't post slashdot comments on St. Patty's Day.
Waaaay ahead of you :D Happy St Patrick's day from Portugal ;)
in america we celebrate st patricks day on the 17th, which is Monday.
Talking outta ass (Score:2, Funny)
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And I guess you overestimate their attention span. FB will be "lame" sooner or later. Give it 2-5 years and everyone will be jumping on that next best thing.
Re:Talking outta ass (Score:4, Insightful)
FB will be "lame" sooner or later. Give it 2-5 years and everyone will be jumping on that next best thing.
I'd generally agree with this, but I was the guy saying that 5 years ago. Everything has a peak, but it seems to be too soon to tell.
Re:Talking outta ass (Score:4, Interesting)
kids have already jumped ship. once their parents started 'fb-ing' they figured it was time to find something else.
they won't last in the spotlight forever. the whole social networking thing is like a swarm and swarms never stay in one place forever. another will pop up and the swarm will go there (or a few places).
the thing that annoys me the most is that webmasters seem to feel compelled to put up those stupid F and T icons and to join in that nonsense. if you are a company, you 'have' to be on both of those mindless services.
I'd like to see some icons that proudly state 'I'm NOT on fb or tw. I have no icons and nothing for you to follow me on'. I'd have more respect for the business if they put THAT on their website.
An icon that says "Kiss my RSS, Facebook" (Score:2)
I'd like to see some icons that proudly state 'I'm NOT on fb or tw. I have no icons and nothing for you to follow me on'.
A big orange RSS icon should work well for that. "If you want to follow me, go ahead and follow me using your browser."
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" Kids, upon the whole, do not use Facebook. "
Citation required.
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it would be better to say kids don't use facebook except to talk to grandma
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The current generation of kids do, just as the current generation of parents and grand parents do. This doesn't seem to me like a mix that will survive long - FB will eventually split into an adult only thing with the following generation gravitating to something else, and thus will eventually whither and die.
I think the article is generally right - a large group will eventually split into many groups, be it by age, common interests or as a reaction to a lack of privacy and against the 'establishment' in ge
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Don't be so sure.
All my younger kids cannot wait until they are old enough to get a facebook account, and my oldest three that do have one are on it constantly.
Chances are very high that lack of facebook consumption by kids is limited by very paranoid parents that are crippling their future in any tech field by not allowing regular access to the Internet.
Re:Talking outta ass (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure they want to have one. To play some FB game, to put some pics on it, but certainly not to socialize with their friends. Well, at least not once puberty sets in, they notice that their parents (or their parents' friends) have FB accounts and they can't really avoid "friending" them.
Then they'll be looking for some other medium to communicate with their peers where their parents are not going to be able to snoop.
Give me one other part of history where everybody (Score:5, Insightful)
Phone system?
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In this argument, the phone system is analogous to the Internet, as a whole. When you're connected to the phone system, you can contact anyone else who's on the phone system, regardless of their local provider. Granted, you may have to may some sort of toll, if they don't use the same provider, or are geographically distant (depending on your provider). However, they're still accessible.
Re:Give me one other part of history where everybo (Score:4, Insightful)
No, the phone system is a network of compatible and standardized endpoints. No one really cares how they are connected, just like no one would care if Facebook didn't use the internet. I think the phone system is a pretty good example.
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No, AT&T's monopoly was on long distance (Score:2)
In many places local phone service was provided by small providers, and AT&T primarily linked them together. All these small providers used the same protocols and standards so anyone could make a phone call to anyone else.
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terrible analogy. facebook is so much more destructive to social interaction than a paper book that's basically a large rolodex.
Simplicity (Score:4, Insightful)
Right or wrong, the reason a large site like Facebook stays large as most people dont want to have to go different places to do what amounts to the same thing.
Would you rather go to 10 friends house each week for 30 minutes each, or everyone hang out at one for the afternoon? Most people would not choose all the running around.
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Actually, a more apt analogy would include the stipulation that a government agent would be there watching you all for the afternoon, recording all of your conversations, taking pictures/video, and storing them for possible future criminal cases involving one or more of you. In that case, I'd pick the 30 minutes option, or just find somewhere else to be for the afternoon.
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Yeah, the researcher doesn't get it at all. The so called "interest group" is friends and family. It's one spot I can go to to find out what's up. I certainly wouldn't go there to satisfy an anime addiction but she needs to realize there are different kinds of groups and they don't all fit into her very limited definition of what a group is. It's sad that I get this and I'm not a fb fan and I almost never post.
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Right or wrong, the reason a large site like Facebook stays large as most people dont want to have to go different places to do what amounts to the same thing.
Would you rather go to 10 friends house each week for 30 minutes each, or everyone hang out at one for the afternoon? Most people would not choose all the running around.
Here's my pet theory at the moment: Facebook stays big because it got a 'critical mass' user base very early and is keeping it through lack of inter-operability with other social networks. If that description sounds a bit like the Microsoft's PC operating system monopoly of yesteryear, that's because it is. This phenomenon also goes by another name: 'vendor lock'. People on Facebook don't have much choice other than to stay on Facebook if they want to enjoy the full spectrum options for interacting with the
Monopoly (Score:2)
Facebook is AOL. (Score:2)
Srsly. Don't get all exercised about it. It'll pass.
I'm actually kinda surprised FB aren't blanketing the nation with CD-ROMs.
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I think it's about time they do that. My AOL coasters ain't in any shape anymore to be presentable, I need replacements!
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yes! cool idea.
bring back the coasters and start a new service called silverbook !
yeah, it has 'book' in it, so you can assume the US based corp attorneys will be all over that. "you used OUR word. we own that. stop it!". sigh.
It's the other way around: AOL is Facebook (Score:2)
you may call anyone, The FCC says so (Score:2)
Failing to follow that rule will bankrupt Verison, Comcast, or AT&T in a day.
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don't worry, as long as a "phone" is involved no obstruction may be made by the carrier.
The FCC's new plan is to move phone service to VoIP. The phone will be over the internet and not the other way around. They won't obstruct anything within your sip tunnel. Woo hooo.
It's Totally False (Score:2)
Why: A default answer is easy, because it requires no decision making.
Fragmentation has never been the natural state of anything just like "nature abhors a vacuum".
This is why your electric company, gas company, phone company, cable company are one monopolies.
Also think of E-Bay (what is alternative?), Amazon.com (what is alternative?), or how companies standardize on Microsoft Office and Windows and how schools standardize around iPads.
I am more offended
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This is why your electric company, gas company, phone company, cable company are one monopolies.
Not where I live. You have a free market - at least an illusion of one.
Also think of E-Bay (what is alternative?), Amazon.com (what is alternative?)
Both Amazon & Ebay are not the top companies on their respective fields (TaoBao is bigger than both combined). Amazon's alternative is to skip the marketplace and buy on your local retailer (if available). If not, buy on a clone (Jumia, Lazada, Linio, etc). E-Bay alternatives start offline (newspapers).
AOL, Compuserve, Prodigy (Score:3)
Imagine being a subscriber of AOL, PC-Link, Compuserve, Prodigy, Delphi, or GEnie, and not being able to send messages to customers of other services.
It has already happened once, and we are repeating it.
Lack of history... (Score:2)
Facebook is the same anomaly as AOL was -- critical mass and everyone was there that most people wanted to talk to / find. And MySpace was the same animal for a while.
What about operating systems? (Score:2)
... Microsoft Researcher Danah Boyd put words to a feeling
"The idea of everybody going to one site is just weird. Give me one other part of history where everybody shows up to the same social space. Fragmentation is a more natural state of being....
I wonder if she believes that the same should hold true for operating systems.
Misunderstanding Facebook (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook is not a place that everyone goes to. It is merely a hosting platform where people create zillions (of partially overlapping) "places" that they go to. Those millions of people are not on your Friends list. Facebook is millions of "places", not one. (However, George Takei's page is indeed the one single place in the world where everyone goes. But just for his stuff; nobody reads the comments.) As for Facebook "bombarding your news feed with useless information 24x7", ummm, that doesn't happen to me. Get a life?
Re: Hosting Platform (Score:2)
they're called "social circles". Facebook 2011 (Score:4)
> Is your social dynamic interest-driven or is it friendship-driven? Are you going there because there's this place where other folks are really into anime, or is this the place you're going because it's where your pals from school are hanging out?
I believe those different groups are called "social circles", and Facebook started supporting the concept in 2011, after Google+ made it central to their interface. Facebook is the MEDIUM for different grugroups to communicate. Facebook is not the group.
Yes, it would be weird if every group gathered at the same physical location. It would not be weird if they all drove in cars to get there. Facebook isn't a physical space that crams everyone together. It's a method of getting to different groups a person belongs to.
Last time in a month — and probably forever (Score:2)
It hasn't been chronological in a while. FB chooses whose posts I see at the top. Do they know me better than I do?
FB has been over for quite a while. Teenagers do not want to be "FB friends" with their grandma.
Last week, I received an invite to an event through email! Think of it. Email is just the same as FB, without inviting FB to be the middle-man (and NSA toady).
Bless this week. My friends are finally realizing that FB is just a mi
FB filters spam better than some email providers (Score:2)
Email is just the same as FB, without inviting FB to be the middle-man
And that's the problem. Internet mail became less useful to people when spammers learned how to defeat Bayesian filters. Facebook has the resources to filter spam centrally and apply an effective death penalty [catb.org] to repeat offenders because making and verifying a new Facebook account means getting a new cell phone number.
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And that's the problem. Internet mail became less useful to people when spammers learned how to defeat Bayesian filters.
I get more spam on Facebook than I ever had in email. Spam or not emails are also much easier to sort, organise and archive.
Imagine a world (Score:5, Insightful)
>"author and Microsoft Researcher Danah Boyd [...] Imagine being a Comcast customer and being unable to email somebody using Time Warner, or a T-Mobile subscriber who can't call somebody who's on Verizon. Why do we allow this with our social networks?"
That's a good question, Ms. "Microsoft researcher". Perhaps you can imagine a world where people can exchange documents freely and accurately without proprietary software like MS-Word. Or a world where consumers can put any OS they want on any computer without MS working with vendors to try and block them at the BIOS level. Or imagine people sharing calendar events easily without using MS's Exchange/Outlook formats. MS tried to hijack the web with IE (and did so successfully for years), and lied about their competitors to prevent diversity, locked out vendors from including Linux or other FOSS on machines, corrupted exported filters to make sure files to/from competitors would be partially broken. And the list goes on and on. Microsoft has been responsible for more lock-in and anti-compatibility than any other tech company, so perhaps I find it ironic that someone from Microsoft would ask us to imagine any kind of world of incompatibility.
network effect iff vendor lockin (Score:4, Insightful)
lockin/networkeffect is so much easier a business model than competing based on excellence.
it's an interesting question to ponder: at what level of clue do customers begin to care? does the mass market ever reach that level? implicitly, sure - a service won't succeed which can't interoperate at least well enough. but how many customers really understand the concept of protocol or API - understand it well enough to realize that it permits vendor-independent services?
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it's an interesting question to ponder: at what level of clue do customers begin to care? does the mass market ever reach that level?
How about, "when they start noticing it hurting them?" People didn't care about VB6 lock-in until Microsoft discontinued it. Then they began to distance themselves from Microsoft.
People will start caring about Facebook when they realize all their photos are on there and everyone is switching to a different site.
Network effect. (Score:2)
It's called the network effect: the benefits of all going to one single place outweigh the costs. Same as for going to the supermarket, using MS Office, speaking the same language... Facebook is mainly a blank slate, you put on it what you want (subdivided between audiences if you want) and link with whomever you want. Plus I'm not sure what the cost of going to FB is ? I don't do social networking, but if I did, I'd go to Facebook. Why bother with anything else when it's free, everybody's there, and there
You need to subscribe to cellular service (Score:2)
Plus I'm not sure what the cost of going to FB is ?
To verify your account [facebook.com], you need a mobile phone that can receive SMS.
Not really a sensible analysis (Score:3)
Facebook isn't a social meeting place, it's a communications platform that also happens to let you hang a sign on the door that everyone can see.
That's why they bought whatsapp, that's why they have all of the various tools to send and archive messages and to let you carve up the 'social space' of who you talk to.
There are lots of shady things they are up to as well,
>Why do we allow this with our social networks?"
Whey do we let countries control their TLD's and phone exchanges and physical mail system? You don't have to use facebook to talk to anybody, there are other forms of communication. But if you want to use the facebook communication system then you have to use Facebook. If it becomes big enough, important enough and persistent enough then the government will step in to regulate it. But it's also possible facebook will go the way of the dodo bird in a couple of years when people get sick of all the stuff facebook ends up doing to try and make money.
Facebook already has an API (Score:2)
yeah but (Score:2)
"The idea of everybody going to one site is just weird. Give me one other part of history where everybody shows up to the same social space." ...you still only "hang out" with the people you like (and not FB "like"), right? Cast aside the marketing ("liking" product X") and if you're using it to keep in touch with folks, then [PRESUMABLY] you care what they have to say.
FB and other social networks are just generic spaces you turn into whatever you want...
disclaimer - the only FB acct I have is fake, I use i
Sour grapes (Score:3)
"Give me one other part of history where everybody shows up to the same social space."
Ok, late 80s, to mid 90s: usenet.
"Fragmentation is a more natural state of being."
Bears are natural. Also, botulotoxin and cyanide. Just because it's natural doesn't mean it's beneficial to you or good for you.
Give me one other part of history where everybody (Score:2)
"Give me one other part of history where everybody shows up to the same social space."
TV
Radio
Newspaper
There's one mega site "everybody" uses, just like how there used to be one mega network "everybody" watched (NBC) and one mega network "everybody" listened to (NBC again under RCA), etc.
The only thing different with social media is that since people are providing their own shit as content, they end up more closely tied to a particular site because of its content than they were with TV, radio, newspapers, ba
Except... (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It's not for everyone (Score:2)
everybody going to one site is just weird (Score:2)
I know, right? I just went to Google to find another example, but nothing came up.
Technology maturity (Score:2)
Social media simply haven't matured to the point where it makes sense to standardize interfaces and infrastructure. Since all of them are allowed to use proprietary interfaces, there is no chance of integration and people are forced to move to the same network to find each other. As soon as I'd be able to read your Facebook post on my Google+ and you'd be able to read and respond to my tweets from your Linkein account, that need goes away. Stuff like RSS was a nice try, but that only carries the content, no
Dr. Boyd is clearly NOT an anthropologist (Score:2)
The idea of everybody going to one site is just weird. Give me one other part of history where everybody shows up to the same social space."
Apparently Dr. Boyd has never heard of the local pub in villages.
Or the Thing in Scandinavian communities.
I could grant that no social space in history has ever been on the scale of Facebook. But then, Facebook is not exactly a social space. It's like a convention, an aggregate of millions of tiny little local social spaces. An past research has shown that these social spaces are in fact , the same scale as those seen in real life - the the monkeysphere [wikipedia.org]
Counterexamples... (Score:2)
Counterexamples...
Of course, if you aren't one of "The Beautiful People", you need not show up, as you're not getting in.
Studio 54: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
The Factory: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]
Studio One : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S... [wikipedia.org]
Berghain: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... [wikipedia.org]
Club Space: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C... [wikipedia.org]
The Roxy Theatre: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T... [wikipedia.org]
The Womb: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W... [wikipedia.org]
Zouk: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z... [wikipedia.org]
The Blue Note: http://en.wikipedia [wikipedia.org]
Interesting (Score:2)
>Give me one other part of history where everybody shows up to the same social space.
How about Usenet? It was the social space of the Internet through the 90s.
I really miss Usenet and the ability to go to one social space for all my hobbies. Now I have to hop on dozens of different forums. Rather than just fire up my Usenet client and go to rec.collecting.stamps, I end up going to 3 different web sites.
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You mean how everyone just uses Gmail for their mail now?
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Why can't there be an API for social networks? Kind of like email, where everyone follows the same set of rules?
Because there's no money on sharing information.
All the customer's activities generates data that are stored and cross analysed with other people's interactions. How exactly this data is useful it's beyond me, but I guess Facebook is full of smarter guys that know what to do with it.
Sharing this information will allow third partners to take access to some (if not all) of these data, and then Facebook will lose its monopoly on such data.
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How this information could be useful? Just imagine you could have predicted any of the youth trends of the past. Pick any one. Still no idea how you could profit from that in some way?
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Because there's no money on sharing information.
No, its about perception of cost. People see value in having an email. Providers like google see value in crawling user's emails (eg. to know the reach of certain promotions, key products, ordering info, etc - the kind of suff that makes sense once you're collecting data with Google Analytics, and convincing companies to spend money on AdWords).
Sharing this information will allow third partners to take access to some (if not all) of these data, and then Facebook will lose its monopoly on such data.
So you're saying that Facebook loses when sells the daily answer to "what are guys between 20-25yr old that are male caucasian and like hot girls are buying"?
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So you're saying that Facebook loses when sells the daily answer to "what are guys between 20-25yr old that are male caucasian and like hot girls are buying"?
No. I'm saying Facebook would loose money it provides an API that allow any third party to miner the database to answer that question. Please read the GP.
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Email is harder to mine.
There's no reliable cross-linking, there's no "Like" button. You cant count how many times it was read.
And, moreover, you can't prevent third parties to read it (and do the same you are doing) once the sender clicks on the send button.
Data is important and valuable, but it can only be sell if nobody else's have it.
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You are aware that the basic idea behind creating such a social network is harvesting personal information about the users and how they interact with each other, yes? Then who in their sane mind would WANT to create an API to decentralize that?
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I don't think the average FB-sheep has the intellectual potential to pull it off.
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Who is going to pay for the services? No one is gong to pay for this sort of thing, so AD revenue is what pay for places like Facebook. If you bypass it the money slowly dries up and the service goes away.
Even if people did pay, you wont see the amount of money being made, so less incentive for it to happen. Advertisements is the only way its going to happen.
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Yeah, just what we all want..an online identity tied to our real info that can track us as we move across domains.. I'll pass..
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And why would I want to verify my identity? Last time I checked I was pretty sure that I was myself, no need to verify anything.
HuffPost and Answers (Score:2)
And why would I want to verify my identity?
To gain access to forums and comment sections whose operator requires a verified identity as a measure against griefing. Posting a comment to an article on The Huffington Post requires a Facebook account that has been "verified" (associated to a globally unique mobile phone number). Posting to Answers.com requires a Facebook account (or a legacy account which it is no longer possible to create).
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To gain access to forums and comment sections whose operator requires a verified identity as a measure against griefing
I don't think I've read anything quite so funny. Some of the greatest trolling and griefing that I've seen in the 24ish years I've been "online" has been from places that require a FB account to be "verified." People seem to care less when using their actual name, versus a pseudonym.
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Odd. What you describe sounds like my early adoption of internet usage. Everyone made fun of me using that slowpoke, expensive pastime that could never compete with "normal" computer use, since you could barely transfer text sensibly when GUIs already ruled the computer world and 3D graphics were approaching the gaming world. And here I was, that nerdy little idiot, watching text trickle down my phone line and being happy about communicating with someone via text when I could simply have called him (and con
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Facebook is overwhelming, annoying, all consuming. And people let it
I could say the same about programming. or life itself.
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I think you forgot about the 1% or so of useful information from our friends and family, that is the reason for having a facebook account, but the internet is not facebook, most people I know don't use slashdot for example but slashdot does cater to some of my interests. Soylentnews is now overlapping quite nicely with slashdot similar subjects but a lot less spammy trolls. It's probably not going to stay that way.
There are quite a few other sites I use as well such as photography sites , gardening sites a