
Am I the only one who doesn't care about Facebook? - henning
All the social networks look like boring walled gardens/roach motels to me. Great if you can get in on the ground floor for the next big one, lousy for all the users.<p>I'm not willing to buy into an application platform that isn't open and vendor-neutral. For networking, I think there are better ways, like plain old face to face talking: the "hallway track" in conferences is often better than any of the talks.<p>I don't get it. And Zuckerberg stole the idea anyway.
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nickb
Nope. I don't give a damn either. Having hundreds of "friends" is pointless
(how many of them actually know you well? less than 10?) and it's a lot easier
to maintain relationship with those you care about through personal
correspondence through email or over the phone or in person.

Facebook is just a giant game designed for you to waste a lot of your time on
it. I'd rater work on something productive... but hey, do whatever rocks your
boat.

~~~
drusenko
it would be significantly different if you went to college in the facebook era

~~~
samson
I sincerely doubt it. Everyone has his or her own purpose for using facebook,
and on that acccount I won't question anyones reason for using facebook.

The real question which most people fail to ask themselves is are those
purposes for connecting enduring. Initially it will always seem so to most
people, but what about next month or next year when you've graduated or left
your job. Those purpose that existed before will no longer be there. Will
people be constantly finding new purposes to stay connected when you no longer
desire to go to party's or have a project to complete. From that point of view
its no different in the college era as much as in the...well how should i put
this...real life era.

But thats the long term view of the utility of facebook which most people
cannot see.

~~~
drusenko
ambition put together a pretty coherent reply as to why lots of people who
went to college during or post-facebook found it pretty damn useful. now that
i've graduated, yes, i do want to keep up with friends i made in college (and
not just those 10 that i'll visit and keep in close touch with), so that
purpose is enduring. yes, i do enjoy keeping in touch with people i've
connected with, all through my life. and yes, i'll still want to have a quick,
but easy way to stay in touch with more people that i could have before.

quite surprisingly, my mom joined facebook last week. she friended me and put
up family pictures. i've had several friends from college and that i've met
since message me about those pictures -- in a very real sense, it's joining my
personal networks on many levels and allowing people to stay in touch with me
and for me to stay in touch with them more easily.

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aaroniba
Facebook is a utility, not just a frivolous form of entertainment. Users
depend on the service to manage contacts, share photos, and meet new people. A
lot of important information flows through the facebook social graph.

The posts here remind me of the guy who loves to brag about how he doesn't
have a TV in his house. To each his own, but television has had a huge impact
on business and culture world-wide.

So even if you don't personally want to be a Facebook user, you might think
about how it is transforming the way a whole generation of people interact
socially, recognize the business and cultural impact, and conclude that you
should care about it anyway.

~~~
lkozma
I don't get it either. For people you already know, there are plenty of
existing channels to communicate. As for meeting new people, come on, is there
anyone who really made any meaningful relationship through facebook or
something similar?

~~~
adamdoupe
For me personally, it's less about meeting random people through Facebook and
more about getting to know people I randomly meet in real life.

For instance, if I meet someone (hopefully a cute girl) at a party, then using
Facebook I can strengthen that relationship via inviting her to parties,
writing on her wall, and so on. So I use Facebook to enhance existing
relationships, not to develop new ones.

Also, I will never friend someone I haven't meet in real life. That's what
Myspace is for.

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webwright
..."And Zuckerberg stole the idea anyway."

Google stole the idea for Adwords, too.

Besides, how can you steal the idea "a community for college kids"? We had one
of these when I was in college (the earliest days of the internet)... It
sucked, but a lot of us used it.

On the caring about FB front, however-- I agree. Great article here calling
Facebook "AOL 2.0":

<http://www.kottke.org/07/07/facebook-vs-aol-redux>

~~~
irrelative
I was with the author on that until that line. This group, better than any
other I've found on the internet, surely understands how little the actual
idea of facebook is worth.

Why didn't Zuckerberg's friends make the site themselves? Maybe because it was
easier to not make it, and then demand money from him later especially after
facebook became really successful.

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mxh
I don't care about FB either. I probably should, because it's a huge
phenomenon, but, no matter how hard I try, I just can't.

In the first place, all these pure social networking sites (i.e. those that
don't do much useful if you're the only user) rub me slightly the wrong way. I
feel I'm being asked to invest my effort into creating value for someone else,
and that I'm being locked into a single-vendor implementation. It's not a good
feeling.

In the second place, I just don't see what FB _does_ for me that I can't do
more simply some other way.

Although I can't remember name of the fellow who said it, or the exact
wording, I share the sentiment that "I already belong to a social network.
It's called the Internet." I've got an e-mail address, and a (few!) websites.
I don't see why I should have to play in somebody's walled garden to connect
with other people who've got the same.

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german
Social networks should evolve into a more specific community. For example, a
business network where you can collaborate with co-workers around the world to
improve your marketing strategy among other things. It just don't make sense
to me looking at people I don't care about.

~~~
palish
Bingo. So far, social networks haven't organized themselves into specific
internal communities which have a goal.

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vikram
I don't get it either. Probably a sign that I am older than I think. A few
years back it was pokemon and WWF which my younger brothers were crazy about.
Now it's Facebook. Getting old was never supposed to be easy, I guess I need
to face up to it now.

I get linkedin. Don't use it much, but I get it. Don't get myspace, it's like
my daughter's messy room.

What depresses me is that there is a whole range of ideas that I will always
overlook. These are to do with people unlike me. I just don't seem to have a
appreciation for what they need.

I find it hard to start solving problems that don't impact me personally.

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jdavid
I think facebook is like the corporate office space, its white, contains a
cube farm, and is well devoid of personality. I more that do not care about
FB, i just do not like it.

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epi0Bauqu
I've signed up and have tried to get something useful out of facebook and the
other major ones, but nothing productive has really come of any of it. I
suppose if I were in college and it was the central repository for events or
if I was looking for dates, maybe I would find something useful there. But
college was a long time ago at this point and I'm married.

I hope they prove me wrong though. It would be nice if out of the blue I met
someone interesting through one of these sites.

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jmpeters
Facebook is like AOL and MySpace. It will remain popular. It will make a lot
of money. It will make its founders rich. It won't live up to its hype. Given
its closed, proprietary nature, it won't be where true innovation happens on
the web.

I don't blame the Facebook crew for the overhyping of their product. That
blame rests with the investment community, tech journalists, and a reasonable-
sized chunk of the blogosphere, who collectively are about as discerning as a
clique of 15-year-old girls. They think that what's "hot" is whatever they
think everyone else thinks is "hot," which creates an echo-chamber effect
surrounding every half-way successful web business that comes down the pike.

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rokhayakebe
The bottom line is that social networks are mostly a waste of time. Geek and
Social do not really go together. You usually have a small and close group of
friends and you sure do not need FB or MSp to connect with them. I have a FB
profile and that is because I have a Facebook application and my only friends
are a few users and my co-foundrs. But remember that just because you are not
using Facebook does not mean you should not look for opportunities in the
environment. If you can build an app that will generate a nice return within a
few months, then do it.

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Jd
I think one should distinguish between 'care about' and 'like.'

Facebook has utility as a constantly updated online address book. It also has
tremendous market share and the Facebook API could lead to much of social-
networking for the next half-decade being trapped in the Facebook world.
Consequently, I care about Facebook.

I do not like Facebook. I do not like Zuckerberg. I do not use any Facebook
applications because they all seem to be ridiculous time wasters. Maybe at
some point this will change and there will be social-networking with greater
utility.

I certainly hope it is sooner rather than later.

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portLAN
I care about it in the sense that it's a privacy nightmare. That's why I don't
use it.

They are getting people to voluntarily do what they couldn't compel them to do
through legislative means: build dossiers on themselves and submit them to a
corporation; and thanks to recent anti-terror acts of dubious
constitutionality, government will be able to look at that information when
they want to. Combine with Twitter for play-by-play of your whereabouts and
actions, and Loopt to geolocate you everywhere you go.

It's a surveillance society that the innocent invited upon themselves
uncynically.

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ambition
OK, here is some of the "why" of facebook for those of us who aren't heavy
users.

Facebook is casual and useful.

It's easy to set up an event or fundraiser, invite everyone you know, put up
pictures about the event, and so on.

Many comments show that there are expectations for use cases that Facebook
really isn't about. "Having hundreds of 'friends' is pointless." "...looking
for dates...met someone interesting..." That's not what Facebook is about, nor
intended to be.

Yep, you can stay in touch with your close friends on Facebook if you really
want. Many people do. But, it's really about those hundreds of people you
still care about, but you don't see on a regular basis. It is the best way to
keep tabs on them. It's also great for setting plans with them. As a personal
side note, Facebook has led to several happy reunions with old friends after I
lost their contact information for years.

More about the idea of "Facebook is casual". Facebook messages have injected
themselves between email and IM on the formality spectrum, and wall posts are
now between Messages and IM. You can initiate conversation with people who
would otherwise find it odd. Like, say, members of the attractive sex.

The common theme is that Facebook pleases our in-born psychological social
instincts. It is a fine lesson in human factors.

Yet more. The cool kids are on facebook. You know, the ones that we're
supposed to hate as self-respecting geeks, because we're smarter but they
somehow have more fun? That means people who care about being cool get on
Facebook. (Although rebellion is cool, so now it's cool to take a stand
against Facebook and stay off. But that's a whole other story.)

It's a perfectly acceptable social norm to "Facebook-stalk" someone: To look
up their interests when you're interested in them. That's a big one.

It's a handy, casual way of passing around contact information. Once you know
someone's name and a little bit about them, you can find them on Facebook. You
don't need to ask for their phone number or IM or email address, find
somewhere to write it down, and take 30 awkward seconds to do it. You just
say, "Let's find each other on Facebook." To be clear: Facebook makes it just
a little bit easier to pick up. Also, friending is a no-cost way of sending
goodwill.

So that's why people use Facebook.

People on this discussion board love news about Facebook because Facebook is
every tech entrepreneur's wet dream. Zuckerberg is young, modest, smart and
very, very rich. Startup founders love to dream about Facebook-like success
because that's what they all want. It's intellectual masturbation. When
someone posts insights about Facebook's success, instant nerdgasm. Also,
Facebook is an important enough influence on mainstream digital life that few
Web entrepreneurs can ignore it. Facebook app clones can kill fledgling
independent applications fast. And if Facebook manages to get people used to
spending money while on Facebook, they could rival Google, Amazon, and Ebay in
importance.

Finally, a note about the 'stolen idea'. Let's ignore that where the idea came
from is irrelevant to Facebook's current utility and success. You ought to
realize that ideas are near-worthless and execution is everything. FB is a
case study in excellent execution. They hire brilliant developers just like
Joel says, and they built a very clean UI as a competitive advantage over
Myspace. Nearly all successful businesses are based on incremental
improvements on existing ideas with great execution.

Put it this way: "Online store" is not terribly creative, but pg is rich and
famous today because his gang of hackers had the best execution in building
one. Search engines were not a new idea when Google took over the world. Nor
were operating systems or word processors when Microsoft did before that.
Online social networks were not new. They just sucked enough that there was
room for Facebook to step in a build a better one.

~~~
snorkel
As much as I enjoy scoffing at Facebook I have to admit I've personally seen
not-so-net-savvy people get pulled into Facebook for its ability to reunite
and keep up with far flung friends. That it's good for.

Facebook is not however a lucrative environment for 3rd party applications.
All this hype about Facebook applications must stop. Please everyone, stop it.
It's wasting precious development time. Have you not seen the most popular
Facebook applications? Sopranos quotes, horoscopes, lucky numbers. It's like
shareware hell rising up from bowels of long dead usenet groups and has
manifested its unholy presence as a Facebook page. It pains me to know that
some clueless VCs see a future in that.

___Major spoiler alert!!! Do not read further if you are heavily vested into
Facebook development!!!_ __

Here's the final truth: Facebook users are not willing to pay for Facebook
applications.

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tomek
Don't care about it either now. I liked it when it was simple. And before I
got to know how full of himself Zuckerberg is. I could barely stand listening
to him giving a talk. He talks about social graph as if it was his invention
and equal in impact at least to the invention of a wheel. An old good
connections representation in the context of a social network. Doesn't look
like a revolution to me.

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michaelneale
I got sucked in by my non geek friends (all my geek friends I was already
connected to). If nothing else it has been good for keeping in touch with past
friends. Kind of overhyped for that purposes, but it works for me, but its
nothing profound.

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AF
I hold the same disdain for walled networks you do, but ultimately I use
Facebook and others do as well simply because it is convenient and easy to
use.

I also wouldn't base my main application on it, but as a developer I don't
mind it for smaller apps.

~~~
kingnothing
Convenient for what?

~~~
marketer
That question surprised me, because the purpose of billion-dollar businesses
can usually be summed up in a few words.

Everybody has different uses for facebook, which is one of the reasons that it
is so popular. To me, being able to see how ALL of your friends are doing is
invaluable. I can log on and see the the state of my friends' lives, and not
just my college friends, but people from any given stage of my life. I can
find out where friend A is working, or whether friend B is single, etc.. It's
ultimately about keeping connected.

~~~
samson
But why marketer must you feel the need to know all these things. Life is
built of selective information that we acqiure, and often we are better off
from the things we don't know as much as the things we do know.

Do you really want to be informed about friends who get married, but don't
invite you to there wedding because your not in there inner circle, but exist
in there pesudo friendship circle acqiured in college and maintained only
through the convience of facebook. Or do you want to constantly read about
friends who achieve certain success while you have not, or maybe the other way
around, your successful and happy, and there not.

Such information I believe is better left to passing chance encounters as we
all move on in our own lives after college or a particular job when we used
facebook to stay connected.

your point on staying connected in given stages of peoples life is well taken,
but other then close family and friends do you really want to know all that
goes on in peoples lives when you should be busy living your own.

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awt
Yes. You should definitely ignore facebook. Continue along as if it does not
exist. Please.

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raindoll
never used, never will and I am a college student and 99% of my friends have
profiles

~~~
SwellJoe
"I am a college student and 99% of my friends have profiles"

And this is the relevant bit of you're post. ;-)

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ashu
isn't getting dates supposed to be _the_ reason for facebook's existence? :P

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aswanson
No, I don't care about it either. But at 34, why would I?

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eusman
no

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sabat
You've got company. I have no idea what the fuss is about -- and why it's so
sudden.

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edw519
Please don't confuse "friend" with "acquaintance". Ask anyone who has ever had
a serious illness. That's one way to find out who's who.

My real problem with any form of digital communication (social networking,
email, voicemail, text, etc.) is that NONE OF THEM ARE SUITABLE REPLACEMENTS
FOR GENUINE HUMAN INTERACTION. Is it any coincidence that the Facebook
generation is also the Xanax generation?

