Just to note a different perspective here, since the bias of this professional group may be creating a bit of a blind spot, both about Facebook, and indirectly, about Geocities.
I did my dissertation ethnography of a grassroots cyberculture community in the mid-90s. The goal of the study (as for all such studies) was to learn from the COMMUNITY what tools and interfaces and interactions were empowering for the community, and which were not. The community had to teach me, and I avoided imposing my own beliefs about certain tools on their perceptions. I collected data. I can tell you (and this is replicated in many online communities of the day), Geocities and Simplenet, and the others were ESSENTIAL for the community to even to exist, to even coalesce and become empowered to do what they did. They meant EVERYTHING to these grassroots, REAL online communities (as opposed to communities manufactured by marketing people). The SNEERS of professional interface designers meant nothing to them. The grassroots was empowered by a clunky tool, and took it, and exploded, accomplished its goals, and far exceeded them. I'm sure many would say the same of the butt ugly MySpace as well, and Facebook, Tribe, Friendster, et al. So to step back for a moment, to think about real audiences, users, communities, vibrant cybercultures, and how dare they presume to exist and use tools without our benevolent blessing and permission! What nerve of them! <G> How dare those cats resist our herding! LOL. I like to think about a similar disconnect raised in other times, in other places, as elites cite the superior quality of whatever sophisticated technology they are touting, as a widespread, grassroots wildfire seizes upon a weaker, lesser tool, because it is immediately accessable to them, and can be quickly and easily appropriated for their needs. Funny how sometimes the self appointed high priest class so strongly resists the tearing apart of the curtain to the Holy of Holies. Here's the beginnings of a list: weak pathetic PCs vs. superior powerful mainframes HTML vs. SGML pathetic VHS vs. Beta Apple vs PC Messy Inky Printing Press Books vs. gorgeous, scriptoria-copied, Monk-created illuminated manuscripts 2,000-character sets of hieroglyphs readable only by an elite priest class vs.20+ character syllabic alphabets that could be read by slaves and forment revolution Chris On Wed, Sep 17, 2008 at 1:56 PM, Benjamin Ho <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I do agree that there is quite a bit of clutter in FB and that there > still needs to be work done to it. I haven't had the privilege of > using Geocities so I have nothing to compare it to. I think that the > fact that Geocities didn't really take off "into mainstream" was > because it wasn't its time. There's a reason for everything. > > > . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . > Posted from the new ixda.org > http://www.ixda.org/discuss?post=33019 > > > ________________________________________________________________ > Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! > To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe > List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines > List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help > ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
