on the state of social networking.
It's weird that I've got this constellation between lj, fartbook and twitter. My lj posts get imported into facebook as notes and my tweets become my status there. People reply to my tweets or my status. I do my fart* notes here to avoid repetition. Half my lj frineds have turned their account into a tweet dumpster.
Anyway, I'm here today to talk about facebook and the above is an explanation of why I do it here.
So, this is the second 'new' facebook I've been through. The first one from several months ago I thought people's gripes were petty. You don't have to use that site. And if you don't you can use myspace. What's that, myspace's interface is ass? Well then, rejoice in facebook. Or build your own damn website.
This most recent one I had the reaction of "here we go again" mostly in the reaction. Though I've reserved judgement until I had used it for a bit. Now my opinion is split. On the one hand, facebook is still very aesthetically easy to use. The physical layout is still very ergonomic compared to other offerings. On the other hand, this is too much information for somebody to 'casually' operate on. Using facebook, though the interface itself is still pleasing to me, has become a lot more work. I find I skim more and read less. And this is a result in the new iteration's unleashing a firehose of information at my face.
So I dislike the change that has been made. I will be using facebook less not out of protest, but because I'm going to spend the same amount of time on there as I did before, only I'm going to get half the amount of use out of it. I feel that people who want to get a lot of use out of facebook have a legitimate gripe this time. Where before it seemed a matter of aesthetics and annoyance at change, this time the usefulness of the product has been seriously degraded.
If I had to pay for facebook I'd be furious. Since it's free, I'm just primed for the next thing. These sites only matter for a few years till we all move on. It may be time.
Anyway, I'm here today to talk about facebook and the above is an explanation of why I do it here.
So, this is the second 'new' facebook I've been through. The first one from several months ago I thought people's gripes were petty. You don't have to use that site. And if you don't you can use myspace. What's that, myspace's interface is ass? Well then, rejoice in facebook. Or build your own damn website.
This most recent one I had the reaction of "here we go again" mostly in the reaction. Though I've reserved judgement until I had used it for a bit. Now my opinion is split. On the one hand, facebook is still very aesthetically easy to use. The physical layout is still very ergonomic compared to other offerings. On the other hand, this is too much information for somebody to 'casually' operate on. Using facebook, though the interface itself is still pleasing to me, has become a lot more work. I find I skim more and read less. And this is a result in the new iteration's unleashing a firehose of information at my face.
So I dislike the change that has been made. I will be using facebook less not out of protest, but because I'm going to spend the same amount of time on there as I did before, only I'm going to get half the amount of use out of it. I feel that people who want to get a lot of use out of facebook have a legitimate gripe this time. Where before it seemed a matter of aesthetics and annoyance at change, this time the usefulness of the product has been seriously degraded.
If I had to pay for facebook I'd be furious. Since it's free, I'm just primed for the next thing. These sites only matter for a few years till we all move on. It may be time.