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TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

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Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#41

Post by nommm-nommm »

notahacker wrote: post #37
terminado wrote: post #7

Jesus christ. It's so hard to believe that's only from 2004. I feel like that era transpired 40 years ago. The period of time before smartphones feels like it happened in the 1970's to me. The difference between 2000 and 2015 is so absurdly radical it begs disbelief.

I dunno, I thought part of Facebook's instant success was because, with the exception of wilfully-obtuse student columnists, most students instantly "got" it because they'd had some sort of internet profile and compulsively-updated statuses since their parents had finally succumbed to the avalanche of AOL CDs in 1997. Even the university, moving at such glacial pace it still ran a nineties Windows NT, was trying to g…

The original Facebook didn't have a status to update; that didn't come until around late 2007 or early 2008. There was no chat until that time as well, just "poke." In 2004 it still managed to be "social" for its time though, especially with its focus on a campus.

For a very long time Facebook was just mostly static pages with a list of friends and a "wall" your friends could write on, and maybe, IIRC, photo upload. That's it! It was literally that boring!

Uploading a new profile pic deleted your old one, even. That being said, you could still use Facebook to contact people, if they included their phone number or AIM name, which was accessable to anyone in your college. I was contacted several times this way before Facebook chat/message/whatever else.

I remember when the "mini feed" feature was released, and all it did was list your last 5 or so activities. That was controversial.

The current Facebook shares very little resemblance to the original version, it's very, very fundamentally different from 2004 Facebook.

...yet the original version still got popular.

That being said, the first time. I heard about Facebook was one of those college publications like this one. I wish I could read it today but it was just a student publication that was printed on regular paper and put around campus every once it a while. I remember reading it and being baffled as to why it would be popular. Shortly after that the person I was dating at the time asked me to sign up. That is the only reason I did!

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#42

Post by flashman »

terminado wrote: post #7

Jesus christ. It's so hard to believe that's only from 2004. I feel like that era transpired 40 years ago. The period of time before smartphones feels like it happened in the 1970's to me. The difference between 2000 and 2015 is so absurdly radical it begs disbelief.

> It's so hard to believe that's only from 2004.

It's surprising Holt could still get away with writing "Cornell girls are hideous" as late as 2004!

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#43

Post by at-fates-hands »

notahacker wrote: post #37
terminado wrote: post #7

Jesus christ. It's so hard to believe that's only from 2004. I feel like that era transpired 40 years ago. The period of time before smartphones feels like it happened in the 1970's to me. The difference between 2000 and 2015 is so absurdly radical it begs disbelief.

I dunno, I thought part of Facebook's instant success was because, with the exception of wilfully-obtuse student columnists, most students instantly "got" it because they'd had some sort of internet profile and compulsively-updated statuses since their parents had finally succumbed to the avalanche of AOL CDs in 1997. Even the university, moving at such glacial pace it still ran a nineties Windows NT, was trying to g…

>> And for all the joys of smartphone browsing on the go and novelty of proximity based search.

Still remember ATT Mobile in early 2001 had a "find me" service you could use to find your friends. It was like a messenger app you logged into and then it would show you where your friends were located on a google maps interface. Then you could text or chat with him.

They used the example of a guy who wins some concert tickets and wants to invite his friends that are nearby. It showed him logged in and then bringing up the messaging interface and showing three friends all within a few block radius. He sends out a group text about the tickets and they agree to meet at the bar in 15 minutes. I really thought it was a clever use of GPS and felt this was really the future of "smart" phones.

I tried to sell that shit to everybody I knew and everybody instantly freaked about their phone transmitting where they were and how it would violate their privacy, etc, etc.

I guess times have changed huh?

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#44

Post by thesagan »

terminado wrote: post #7

Jesus christ. It's so hard to believe that's only from 2004. I feel like that era transpired 40 years ago. The period of time before smartphones feels like it happened in the 1970's to me. The difference between 2000 and 2015 is so absurdly radical it begs disbelief.

Now that you put it that way, man... things have changed.

I can't help thinking about further back, too. Just imagine how it felt to live around the turn of last century! Planes, [newer] trains, and automobiles! Electricity, plumbing, underground subway transportation. Hygienic medicine. Vaccines. Telegraphs reaching out overseas and powering thousands of morning daily papers; becoming a commodity instead of luxury. Radical industry/political reforms, striking poverty, unimaginable wealth, obscene pollution. Women's suffrage. Radio, traveling circuses and vaudeville, mass consumerism, magazines, torpedos, and a world war. Oh my!

Looking through my great-grandfather's scrapbook (he lived outside Detroit) is absolutely mind-blowing. The stuff he (and especially his father) saw are hard to put into a continuous world. His letters describing the "number of autoes" he passed on the way to visit relatives bleeds giddiness and awe.

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#45

Post by tritosomal »

ChrisClark wrote: post #36
samplatt wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The difference between 2000 and 2015 is so absurdly radical it begs disbelief. The first movie I watched on my GearVR headset was called Strange Days, a 1995 film rather aptly about the introduction of Virtual Reality and how the government is involved in all sorts of dirty cover-ups. The movie was terribawesome, but it was amusing to see what 90's ideas of the future were getting right and wrong. Though, the time b…

As a side note, I don't remember much of that movie beside the 'mental feedback loop' of experiencing live what you're recording. Terrifying.

It was cheesey. The focus of the conspiracy was the political assassination of a musician, except whenever movies try to fictionalize a wildly popular artist, it usually deflates the premise because you're forced into imagining why the artist is so popular.

The music is contrived and laughably bad, so while you might really want to imagine the profound tragedy of losing the artist while being a fan of the music, your just left with blah.

Hackers and Johnny Pnemonic (ostensibly from the same essential genre or style and period) are more fun to watch, simply because those movies don't frame the story arc as supposedly shocking and worrisome, even though they suck probably just as much.

With Strange Days, your supposed to care about something for some odd reason.

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#46

Post by aidos »

nommm-nommm wrote: post #41
notahacker wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno, I thought part of Facebook's instant success was because, with the exception of wilfully-obtuse student columnists, most students instantly "got" it because they'd had some sort of internet profile and compulsively-updated statuses since their parents had finally succumbed to the avalanche of AOL CDs in 1997. Even the university, moving at such glacial pace it still ran a nineties Windows NT, was trying to g…

The original Facebook didn't have a status to update; that didn't come until around late 2007 or early 2008. There was no chat until that time as well, just "poke." In 2004 it still managed to be "social" for its time though, especially with its focus on a campus. For a very long time Facebook was just mostly static pages with a list of friends and a "wall" your friends could write on, and maybe, IIRC, photo upload.…

Haha. Remember when they first introduced apps and they had access to everything? So people were tracking who was viewing your photos the most etc. It was the Wild West out there.

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#48

Post by acetoxy »

Swizec wrote: post #34
65827 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like things are accelerating isn't it? I remember trying to convince people they should sign up for email accounts in like 1992, I remember them looking at me like I was trying to sell them on a cult. Those people staring at me were such fucking dinosaurs they lost siblings to polio. Imagine that craziness. Now I feel like if I don't have a cyberbrain by 2022 it will be a huge letdown.

Crazier still. The young generation once more has siblings who die from polio and measles and such. For reasons. Maybe we're the dinosaurs.

What do you mean?

According to WHO, measles caused 2.6 million deaths a year before 1980, but only 134 200 in 2015. Polio dropped from 350 000 cases in 1988 to 74 in 2015.

Re: TheFacebook.com’s darker side (2004)

#50

Post by treehau5_ »

acetoxy wrote: post #48
Swizec wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Crazier still. The young generation once more has siblings who die from polio and measles and such. For reasons. Maybe we're the dinosaurs.

What do you mean? According to WHO, measles caused 2.6 million deaths a year before 1980, but only 134 200 in 2015. Polio dropped from 350 000 cases in 1988 to 74 in 2015.

I think he was making a passing joke at the anti-vax crowd
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