Ok, so after this whole social networking thing has come to a sort of culmination. There are still a lot of sites popping up, but its already apparent who the main contenders are in the market are. Facebook and Myspace. (I do understand that there are others such as YouTube, Last.fm, Digg, and so on, but my main concern right now is with the top two)
I had a myspace, and i have a facebook (evidently if you scroll down and look to the right). I have noticed something, something that has become more and more prevailant with the introduction of the facebook development platform (which i thought was a terrible idea from the begining). But what i have been noticing is how people want more and more ways to categorize their friends, and even worse, rank them. I dont really seem to understand this concept. I realize how we all have those friends who are either part of a group of close friends and those who are more or less casual acquaintances, but honestly, by showing it visually, its almost like saying that you cherish one's friendship over another's.
So now, as for the facebook development platform, this is what my opinion is. It allows shitty programmers to make shit applications for a website and make said site a whole lot less stable. I have come across it time and time again, applications that try to force themselves to be viral, and it never seems to work. And even worse, people get these applications, put them on their profile and then they just eat up valuable screen real estate (yes, that is a correct computer term). And the majority of them serve little to no purpose.
Now with that said, i will say that i do have some applications on my profile. But i doubt that many of them are the kind that are viral, pointless, or annoying. I have one for my digg.com account, another for last.fm, that stupid bumper sticker one that i will probably be removing, and then a few others. I do like to see my facebook profile as a way to bring together all of my other social networking adventures. I use it with digg, last.fm, and this blog. I am not stupid about what i post because i know that once you put information on the site, its not going anywhere.
So wow, two posts in two days, how bout that, its like a record for me, maybe i should say something that will piss people off and make them all make stupid comments that have nothing to do with what my point is.
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I joined Facebook to keep in touch. Most will be shocked to learn that connecting with people was actually the reason the site was developed. Now it's an out of control monster that has slithered its way into every nook and cranny of our lives. If you do something, Facebook will see it. If you talk to someone, Facebook will hear you. If you buy anything, Facebook will use you for product placement. If you spend more than a few hours away from Facebook, it will lure you back. If your dumb drunk friends take pictures of your dumb drunk ass doing dumb drunk things, your boss will find out (I find this to be hilarious, fitting and sometimes ironic, but still wrong). If that site ever had a positive spirit, it's gone now. It might have something to do with the fact that, contrary to popular belief and the shit ton of dollars he's raking in, Mark Zuckerberg doesn't actually know much about the business he's in or what he's actually doing. More likely is the possibility that moderation is not in our vocabulary anymore, and people just can't get enough of doing stupid shit, as much as possible, as often as possible. That being said, even I have been unable to quit Facebook out of fear that somehow, someway, I might miss out on an important piece of communication from someone I might otherwise never hear from again. You know what that is? That's fucking paranoia, and Facebook has thrust that upon us too... Um, in conclusion, the whole thing makes me sad.
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