-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Owen Densmore wrote: > OK, I've been bumping into facebook a bunch lately .. can anyone tell > me why its wonderful? > > Anyone using it? My interest is that the iPhone world is happy with
I'm using it because a friend's company (http://web.splashcast.net/) built an application for it. I've long been confused by "social networking sites"; so, I decided to put some effort into facebook and see what pops out. I can't use the word "wonderful"; but, I can express a few good things: 1) the status updates are engaging because (if you actually know and like your "friends") they provide little snippets of your friends' sense of humor and daily life. Example status updates on my page now are: XYZ "is NOT watching Suspiria with her son and husband cuz she hates blood and gore." ABC "is transforming his massive ennui stockpile into cold, hard inaction." 2) Some of the applications are useful. For example, one application encourages you to enter the books you've read or are reading and review them. Since I actually like and respect the opinions of the friends I've added, this helps me find the books that don't suck in the imponderably huge list of books I might waste time reading. 3) Since facebook has a fairly fine-grained permissions scheme, people _feel_ a little safer about entering honest biographical information. (Note that I said _feel_ safer.... I don't think they are any safer.) I've actually learned a few things about my "friends" from their biographical info. Personally, I think the usefulness of facebook and linkedin is minimal. LinkedIn seems totally useless (to me) because everyone seems to be into building huge networks of people they don't know or have only met a few times. I've tried to limit my facebook network to people I actually know quite well. This makes facebook seem more useful even though it's not. But, facebook (unlike linkedin) has reduced the frequency of the thought "I wonder what XYZ's up to these days?" - -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-219-3846, http://tempusdictum.com If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all. -- Jacob Hornberger -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD4DBQFGxbf2ZeB+vOTnLkoRAiEuAJ9fenQOkq6VV+Gw3spTCu21jxaRngCXZPTe UosqCvrz160jktA7KoEqTQ== =EN1h -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
