

What if Facebook loses my data? - drusenko
http://david.weebly.com/1/post/2007/07/what-if-facebook-loses-my-data.html

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Alex3917
There used to be an option to export to CSV. Looks like they got rid of it.
The fact that they are actually removing functionality says something.

A couple years ago I exported all my Facebook contacts into a mind map using
FreeMind. I then sorted all of my friends according to where I met them. So
for example, a possible node location would be College -> Classes -> CS100 ->
John. Then if a person had introduced me to more people, those new people
would fall under that person. Not only was it useful as a visual rolodex, but
it was also useful for visualizing which people and organizations were the
most socially productive for me.

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danw
I used to use an app called facebook sync. It synced my facebook account with
my mac address book and phone. I had all my friends phone numbers kept up to
date with no hassle. The application got banned last week and now I'm annoyed
at facebook. As much as I like facebook I want to take that data with me
sometimes, not even to go join a rival network!

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Alex3917
Does the old version of facebook sync still work? I haven't upgraded to the
new version yet.

update: I just tried it and it seems to work.

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danw
Yes it works. I think they told him to no longer distribute the app rather
than revoke the api key.

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BrandonM
Of course, anyone could write a Python script (or even lash together some
shell script involving wget) that would spider your friends' Profile pages and
any of your own relevant information (all messages and wall-to-wall threads).
Then you would have your own local copy of everything, and would no longer be
at their mercy if they suddenly closed up shop.

Hell, you could set it up as a cron job that's done every night. It would look
to Facebook almost like the kind of activity I've seen from several users,
clicking through all their friends to look at pictures, wall posts, and other
crap.

I'm not saying that the current setup is optimal; I'm just saying that backups
are certainly not impossible.

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Tichy
Is that kind of thing safe, though? With all probability, their robots.txt and
user agreement disallows it. So if they detect your spider, they might shut
down your account?

Not a good solution...

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steve
From my work with web web bots, I've seen that it's really so easy to make a
spider that they can't positively identify as such.

If you guys _really_ wanted this then I guess I could show you how...

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clueless
well why not... Also I guess the one way to stay safe is to somehow make it
operate slow so for example it wouldn't aggregate 2000 pages in 5 seconds.

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mynameishere
_A few applications that built this functionality have been taken off-line by
request for TOS violations_

So _that's_ what happened to File > Save As in Internet Explorer.

~~~
ed
Locking up your users' data ensures that there is an increased cost associated
with migrating to a new social network.

They're just protecting their share of the market.

~~~
nickb
This type of 'walled garden' strategy has been disastrous for so many
companies. Hope they change their mind.

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ed
I guess I beg to differ. I can think of many examples where providing
proprietary services for locked-in users has been a primary source of
competitive advantage -- consider why Microsoft fights so fiercely to maintain
a high market share for a product which generates no direct income (IE). It's
a little counter intuitive at first, but they're ensuring control of the
market. That's a powerful thing.

Referring to facebook as a "Walled garden" brings to mind AOL's demise, but
just because they may appear to be similar tactics the companies aren't doomed
to suffer the same fate. AOL failed for a number of reasons, the largest of
which was a failure to adapt to the needs of the market. Facebook appears to
be a more nimble company and I would be surprised if it had similar problems.

~~~
SwellJoe
"AOL failed for a number of reasons, the largest of which was a failure to
adapt to the needs of the market. Facebook appears to be a more nimble company
and I would be surprised if it had similar problems."

You reckon AOL became the largest ISP by "failure to adapt"? No...the failure
to adapt came much later. They ruled for a long time. Facebook is barely a wee
lad in comparison. If it gets a run as top dog for as long as AOL then
Zuckerberg should count his lucky stars.

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Tichy
"Having gone to college in the Facebook age, would I even know who my college
friends were, and how to get in touch with them? (Honestly, probably not)"

Maybe it doesn't matter much then...

Still, it's stupid that one can't export data from Facebook. I still wish
somebody could explain the Facebook craze to me. Any introductory articles
available?

~~~
drusenko
basically, the idea behind that comment is that while I have 10-15 very close
friends that I still keep in touch with on a week-by-week basis, there are 290
other friends who I'd love to see, but would probably not think about out of
the blue on any given day.

it helps me keep track of more people that i want to keep track of, and i can
easily see a snapshot of their life to catch up on what they've been doing.

while in college, it helped me connect with more people, get the easy
questions out of the way (is she single or not?), and connect with people
through mutual friends (hey, you know her too?) broken down simply, facebook
helped me make more and maintain better relationships more efficiently.

there's nothing nerdy about that at all. at Penn State, some of the earliest
adopters were the greek scene.

~~~
Tichy
By now I am thinking the main feature of Facebook is to give you an aggregated
feed of your friends blog postings? That makes sense, although people could
just get blogs elsewhere.

I understand the benefits of managing friendships, but still it sounded odd if
you say you wouldn't even remember some "friends" without Facebook.

~~~
drusenko
it's not that i wouldn't remember them, just that i can't keep up to date on
them easily... i might spend 5 years of my life without thinking of a
particular person. with facebook, i can browse through most people i met in
college (or later, for that matter) and stay connected.

and it's very far from just getting a friends' blog feed. you can, in 1 stop,
check out their recent pictures, view what they've been up to, who's been
talking to them/who they're talking to, their life status (relationship,
employment), and any and all other information they choose to make available.
i can also very quickly glance at someone i don't know, and get a quick feel
for what they do/like/what kind of person they are.

a very simple but powerful example: i see all of my friends' upcoming
birthdays when i log-in. sending some birthday wishes + a note is a great way
to reconnect with people you don't talk to often.

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rnesh
That would be a great feature for Facebook to implement. I wonder if it's
possible to get around the TOS if the application were to check with each user
before sending their contact information to the person who requested it.

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drusenko
seeing as they already agreed for that information to be available when they
added the user as a friend, why would you make them agree again?

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motoko
Ever see the movie "Eraser?"

~~~
thomasswift
Yeah. I wish i could have my time back, but nice rail gun.

