The Facebook Musings
This is something I've been tossing around for a little while now and I think I'm finally ready to publish it. If Facebook Notes works correctly I think it'll also appear as a blog post in my Facebook friend's public news feed providing some level of integration between my Livejournal and my Facebook.
Having been using Facebook for a few months now I've felt it's now the time to collect my various thoughts about it into something of a list and provide a sort of musings on what I think and what I like about it. There are some aspects of it that are really good and some that are a major annoyance. I'm also aware that some of these things are a blessing or a curse depending on the situation. To help condense my thoughts I'll use bullet lists:
The Bad
The Good
Having been using Facebook for a few months now I've felt it's now the time to collect my various thoughts about it into something of a list and provide a sort of musings on what I think and what I like about it. There are some aspects of it that are really good and some that are a major annoyance. I'm also aware that some of these things are a blessing or a curse depending on the situation. To help condense my thoughts I'll use bullet lists:
The Bad
- Privacy is dead. I'm thinking I'll expand on this in a separate post later but for now I'll mention that unless you very, very tightly control the information going in and out of Facebook it can be a huge privacy liability. As one of my friends said, "It's great for online stalking." In Facebook's defence though, its block function works very well.
- Profile bloat is a headache. Facebook needs to limit the number of boxes a person can put on their profile when it loads. A few boxes displaying useful info or common used apps are fine, especially if they only load up some text and a few images. However, users seem obsessed with trying to cram as many stupid boxes onto their profile as possible, causing bandwidth seizure as your (otherwise ample) 18MBPS connection struggles to load thousands of tiny jpeg images of the profile's entire friends list and all of their friends. Yes, I'm looking at you Entourage. This problem is made even worse by the seemingly endless supply of "What X would you be if you were an X?" quiz apps.
- Spam is a scourge. Facebook likes to let you know about every little thing that is going on by e-mailing you about it. It is possible to change this behaviour and reduce the inbox clog, but it takes quite some tweaking to get it right. I can understand why they do it, every e-mail is a reminder to go visit the site, every visit generates an ad impression and every ad impression makes them cash. The e-mail is eyeball bait. However it's made that much worse by allowing apps to spam everyone on a user's friends list.
- People you thought you'd escaped can find you. This one usually (though not exclusively) takes the form of annoying co-workers or work superiors. Sure, it's your private page and it has nothing to do with work at all, but can you really reject the boss's friend request? Facebook does provide a work around by allowing you to separate your friend list into groups and change what these groups can see but it can get tricky keeping track of who knows what and if you slip up it could potentially get messy. I've read speculation that this is what will kill the site in the end.
- It can be a bit creepy. The big one here is apps again. Basically, there are a number of apps that simulate slave trading of your friends. Because apps can access basic information about you unless you choose to block them (opt out) you can end up as a 'human pet' on these apps even if you haven't ever heard of the app. These apps are just creepy to being with, but having to block them to prevent your likeness being traded is a problem that Facebook should have had the foresight to prevent.
The Good
- Some 3rd party apps are really clever. A lot of users have taken the API and used it to write applications that do clever things with Facebook. A good example of this would be Visual Bookshelf which provides a way for you to share what you're reading and what books you own with your friends. It's an example of how social networking between people can work well.
- It can be an invaluable intelligence asset. The flip side of killing privacy is that when you decide you need or want to track someone, Facebook can help you start building the pieces you need to get all the way up to identity theft.
- People you've just drifted out of contact with can find you. This one is the flip side of people you don't want being able to find you. Often for all kinds of reasons we lose touch with people and using Facebook it's possible to find those people again or they can find you. So you can catch up with that person from high school that you haven't seen in years.
- You can organise parties and events online. You just invite the people you want and they can RSVP with the click of a mouse, the event listing then keeps track of who can make it and who can't. Of course, people will still change their minds at the last minute and throw your plans into chaos, it's only a website after all, it can't change human nature.
- Sharing of photos and videos. This has been possible with other sites (Flickr) for a while, but the magic social aspect of Facebook makes it easier and you can make much tighter limits on who sees a photo with it. So if you're travelling, it's a lot cheaper than sending everyone a postcard or MMS of your travels.