
The Decline of Facebook As A Social Network - jimlast
http://jimlastinger.com/2011/04/the-decline-of-facebook/
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muppetman
The main problem this person faces but glosses over is the fact that they've
added people they don't know. Why do that? It makes no sense and will only
cause you to get annoyed.

I am quite proud of the fact I only have 100 FB friends, because I know each
and every one of them. I lot of people I know from IRC and work refer to me as
the Facebook Nazi because I won't add them, but they're not really my friends
and I don't want to know what they're doing at 5am in the morning.

Toughen up a bit, delete those people you added because you know a tiny bit
about them and things'll become that much easier to deal with.

This is exactly like the "Oh I get SO MUCH email" posts and then you find out
the person signed themselves up to 50 email lists, 20 "email me when you get a
new comment/status" things etc. Don't sign up for crap you don't want, it's
that simple!

[Edit was just spelling fixes]

~~~
gigawatt
> I am quite proud of the fact I only have 100 FB friends, because I know each
> and every one of them. I lot of people I know from IRC and work refer to be
> as the Facebook Nazi because I won't add them, but they're not really my
> friends and I don't want to know what they're doing at 5am in the morning.

Maybe it's a personal shortcoming, but this is the main reason I still don't
have a Facebook account. I don't want to have to explain to people I have to
see every day why I don't want to be Facebook buddies. It causes awkwardness
in real life, and getting status updates form people I actually like (but
still might not care where they ate dinner last night) isn't worth the hassle.

~~~
muppetman
You find this? All I've found is it makes people all the more desperate for me
to add them, as if I'm hiding some super social parties from them or
something.

I don't find it awkward to tell people "Sorry but I only add people that'd let
me sleep on their couch at 5am in the morning" - in fact it often makes them
feel awkward usually because they don't want to admit they'd not let me in!

~~~
gigawatt
I meant that it might be a personal shortcoming that I'm not able to be that
blunt with people I have to see on a regular basis. I respect your system and
wish I could carry it out, but for me, it's just something I really don't want
to deal with. Whatever serotonin fix I would get from Facebook isn't worth it
to me.

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krakensden
If you do not friend people you aren't friends with, you do not have this
problem. For real friends who are annoying on facebook, that's what the little
'x' is for on their updates.

I imagine it's harder if you're even just a little bit internet famous, but
most people aren't.

~~~
randall
I started two podcasts on CNET, Loaded and The 404, so I have some people who
friended me on FB because of that. My solution? I hide unmercifully. If I
don't care about someone, or they post 1-2 status updates I find irrelevant,
they get hidden from my feed. I have 1k+ friends, but I still get the signal :
noise ratio that I like.

~~~
ajslater
Your problem is cured by creating a Facebook Fan page. Many famous people's
Facebook problem could be cured with that.

~~~
randall
At the time, I didn't have the ability to create a fan page... and now I don't
work at CNET, so now I have random left over fans.

Def not the end of the world.

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cydonian_monk
When 'Status'es on FaceBook became automatic Wall Posts, and therefore
persistent, I commented to a few friends that this one simple change altered
the nature of Facebook from a social facilitator to a social inhibitor.
Before, if you wanted to know what your far-away friends had been up to, you
had to call them up or send a letter, forcing some level of social
interaction. Now you just have to dig through their wall posts.

It was once nice, simple, succinct. A 'phonebook with pictures.' Now, it's
sterile and noisy, and not even useful as a phonebook.

[Edit:] This persistence of data I feel drives and encourages the issue the
author describes - friending people you don't know just to see what they're
doing (and to gain access to their photos, et cetera). There's a simple and
obvious solution to the 'complete strangers' issue, but I don't feel that is
the real problem.

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reemrevnivek
In response to all the "Don't add people you don't know" comments, I think it
should be pointed out that this isn't always an option.

Drama and politics variously meant that I had to accept requests from people
who posted far too many meaningless status updates. Blocking, hiding, muting
etc. don't work when you need to respond to 1 out of the 100 posts they send
your way.

If it was possible to filter, mute, mark-as-read on a programmatic basis as it
is with email (Love gmail filters...), I might not have been forced to delete
my account.

People can't take it personally when you delete your account, but not
friending, unfriending, hiding, or blocking can all be considered personally
offensive actions.

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rohanprabhu
Recently I have been seeing an increase in the number of such posts titled
'Decline of facebook', 'collapse of facebook' or some other theory trying to
explain why facebook won't stand the test of time. The point here is, why are
we bothered? There are people who like it, and there are people who don't. The
user base of facebook has reached a point where any categorization becomes too
big a demographic hence no matter which feature one would talk about, there
are takers and there are haters. It is all about which side is heavier here.

Facebook and twitter, in the initial phases of their global boom (after
facebook moved out of it's college/university paradigm) was used as a global
social networking tools by geeks, bloggers and web designers. People who have
a very different look on how the internet should be. And even though these
people 'make' most of the obervable internet (read: web), it is important to
know that facebook also caters a whole lot to the social networking junkies
who love the loads of like buttons, and a rush of social media. While some of
may think it is lame, it is rarely a question of lame or cool, but what keeps
the site running.

Either ways, these articles seem to offer quite a narrow demographic when they
try to provide any insight or an opinion. And that is because, 'Facebook
users' today is a demographic so large that it approximates quite good to the
law of averages. Above and beyond, my only point is that, only time will tell.

~~~
anasol
You are right, the user-base is far too large to be properly accounted for;
and that is the root of the reason why there are so many articles about FB's
decline is that some of us wish for it. Think about it: who writes these
articles? The same basis of geeks, bloggers and web designers that consider
that FB has become overpopular and loaded with a plethora of useless features
(game apps, "like" buttons for pointless activities, etc.), and that some
users tend to update their statuses too much and too often. Which is the main
reason why smaller, and arguably better communities like this one can thrive.
It is all a matter of who gets to call the shots regarding what the Internet
should be like.

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kin
I don't have this problem. None of my friends have this problem. It looks to
me more like user error of adding people you don't know and adding spam apps
than it is Facebook's problem.

~~~
jimlast
Hi, I wrote the article. Thanks for the thoughts, but I've never added people
I don't know or apps I don't use. Spam apps I was referring to are from other
people that show up in my stream or wall, those "Billy answered a question
about you" posts.

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Dove
Maybe "people you don't know" is a little strong. But you wrote,

 _Back when Facebook was new . . . the friends that you had were people that
you actually wanted to keep in touch with._

That's still the case with me -- I only make friends with people I want to
keep in touch with. The friends _you_ have may have changed in character . . .
but I find that hard to parse as Facebook's fault.

It seems to me that regular prunings and a less promiscuous friending policy
would solve your problem.

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hammock
This resonated with me:

"Personally, it feels like my Facebook stream is becoming an email inbox. I
get a lot of messages, a few of them matter to me, and there are lots ... that
are just spam."

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known
What is the use of FB for businesses? Advertising ?

~~~
ajslater
The same as not for business. Its just another communication channel with its
own advantages and disadvantages. So, yes, that and more.

