Earlier quoted context omitted.
I bet it is yours too. I do have a Facebook profile... but I visit the site maybe once every three months, and all the data is the fake data I put in 4 years ago. My real identity is this thing called a "web page" that is the first Google result for my name.
I've a friend who is paranoid about his online identity and always gives fake data to websites. Recently he was ranting that some online car insurance thing gave him an awful quote, much worse than his present deal. Hmm, could that be because his fake identity had no credit history...? The benefits of a coherent identity on and offline are only going to get more compelling.
Thinking about using Facebook Connect on your site? Step one: Abandon your will to live.
21–30 of 48 posts
Re: Thinking about using Facebook Connect on your site? Step one: Abandon your will to live.
#22Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is true. Regardless of our opinions of Facebook, it has been able to find its way into the daily workflow of the lives of an exponential number of people. This makes it a huge asset to many parties.
175M people that don't click ads, and have no money.
Facebook could replace dating, restaurant review, business productivity, classified sites, and expand into things we haven't thought of yet, but that requires a substantial user base. The company is still growing out of its college foundation, but judging by its growing acceptance among the 25+ age group, it could start gaining value fast.
Re: Thinking about using Facebook Connect on your site? Step one: Abandon your will to live.
#23APIs aside, I'm really struck by the lack of professionalism on behalf of the Facebook employee the author mentioned. I'm friends with several Facebook employees and several times I've seen this type of behavior (mostly through notes that the employees share to gripe about what they perceive to be an obnoxious userbase). One of the more inappropriate exchanges I remember was where a user sent an admittedly hostile co…
Here's the note in question. I wrote it, and I think your comment mischaracterizes its true nature. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=27551539159&id=... The purpose of both my note and my personal replies to the hate-mail I received was not to express hostility. Rather, both were attempts to call attention to how the veil of anonymity provided by the Internet changes the way people treat each other, often for…
I recall the logic of the note being along the lines of: "You're saying nasty things to me. I see that you're a Christian. How can you do this when being hateful is against your religion?" It read to me like a snarky response calling him a hypocrite (even if you didn't explicitly label him as such).
I have serious problems with this for a few reasons:
First, as a business owner, I don't think an employee should be anything less than the pinnacle of politeness when dealing with customers (which is what FB's users amount to - even if they're only paying you with eyeball time). Implicitly labeling him as a hypocrite was impolite. The note damaged my opinion of how FB is run as a business.
The second, larger, issue is related to privacy. Personally, I'm not comfortable with you treating my profile information as anything more than raw data - as neutral and uninteresting as a set of ones and zeros. Just as I wouldn't want my doctor to tell people things he knew about me, I don't think you should reveal information about this guy - either his religion or the impolite way in which he communicated with you. I seem to recall that information from his profile not being available to the general public.
Finally, when it comes down to it, his religion just had nothing to do with whatever feature request / bug report he was making. Just as I wouldn't expect a waitress to call attention to me having orange hair when I order a burger, I don't expect you to bring up my personal information when I give you feedback on your service.
Shortly thereafter, I quit using FB on a regular basis. I did so for several reasons, but that incident was certainly somewhere in my mind when I quit.
Re: Thinking about using Facebook Connect on your site? Step one: Abandon your will to live.
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
For about 175,000,000 reasons.
The fact of the matter is that numbers speak. Facebook is my identity on the web, and I bet it is yours too. It is too late to turn back. Unless they do something 10x worse than Beacon, I'm not leaving, and I doubt you will either. I'm afraid they control your web identity. You know what though, I'm okay with it. It makes my life easier.
Instead, I think we'll see social networking layer across websites generally: imagine using opensocial/oauth over multiple sites that you use, as if you could bolt Ning.com over the top of you blog or forum or startup site.
I tested out adding Google's friend connect on my wordpress personal blog. Fairly simple, but they still collect the data :( I guess a duopoly is better than a monopoly, but there's still room for web identity to develop outside of Facebook.
Re: Thinking about using Facebook Connect on your site? Step one: Abandon your will to live.
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
I bet it is yours too. I do have a Facebook profile... but I visit the site maybe once every three months, and all the data is the fake data I put in 4 years ago. My real identity is this thing called a "web page" that is the first Google result for my name.
I've a friend who is paranoid about his online identity and always gives fake data to websites. Recently he was ranting that some online car insurance thing gave him an awful quote, much worse than his present deal. Hmm, could that be because his fake identity had no credit history...? The benefits of a coherent identity on and offline are only going to get more compelling.
Re: Thinking about using Facebook Connect on your site? Step one: Abandon your will to live.
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's the note in question. I wrote it, and I think your comment mischaracterizes its true nature. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=27551539159&id=... The purpose of both my note and my personal replies to the hate-mail I received was not to express hostility. Rather, both were attempts to call attention to how the veil of anonymity provided by the Internet changes the way people treat each other, often for…
Thanks for responding to this. It seems I don't have permission to view this note (probably due to a change in networks on my side) and I believe the incident was a few months ago, so I may not have perfect recollection of the note. I hope I didn't mischaracterize your note. I recall the logic of the note being along the lines of: "You're saying nasty things to me. I see that you're a Christian. How can you do this w…
'you are a faggot. this facebook sucks. the one should come back. i want to kill you. go fuck a man'.
I kid you not. Do you think people (any people, nevermind those who build products that are given away for free) deserve such abuse?
Re: Thinking about using Facebook Connect on your site? Step one: Abandon your will to live.
#27So I find this interesting in that it flies in the face of a couple common thoughts. The common mantra is to release early, release often. Now I admittedly don't know how often FB is releasing, it seems like the crux of the complaint that they released too early... and the fix isn't to release more often (at least at the author's implication.) Would he honestly rather they hadn't released anything at all? How would y…
I think the rules are different when you're creating an API that's supposed to be used by thousands of developers and millions of people right off the bat. FB is no longer a startup and developers are depending on them not just for the apps to 'work', but for their very livelihoods. The app I'm working on for a living was brought down recently because FB changed the name of a method in their javascript library. Once…
Well done if it's working for you though, hope it continues to.
Re: Thinking about using Facebook Connect on your site? Step one: Abandon your will to live.
#28Earlier quoted context omitted.
Here's the note in question. I wrote it, and I think your comment mischaracterizes its true nature. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=27551539159&id=... The purpose of both my note and my personal replies to the hate-mail I received was not to express hostility. Rather, both were attempts to call attention to how the veil of anonymity provided by the Internet changes the way people treat each other, often for…
You have the wrong attitude if you feel that you need to tell customers to "reconsider their own behavior." From this reply, it sounds like you're insulting your customer by pretending to know more about their religion than them. That's not cool. It is very unprofessional to comment on irrelevant personal information you have stored about a customer.
Re: Thinking about using Facebook Connect on your site? Step one: Abandon your will to live.
#29Re: Thinking about using Facebook Connect on your site? Step one: Abandon your will to live.
#30So I find this interesting in that it flies in the face of a couple common thoughts. The common mantra is to release early, release often. Now I admittedly don't know how often FB is releasing, it seems like the crux of the complaint that they released too early... and the fix isn't to release more often (at least at the author's implication.) Would he honestly rather they hadn't released anything at all? How would y…
I think the rules are different when you're creating an API that's supposed to be used by thousands of developers and millions of people right off the bat. FB is no longer a startup and developers are depending on them not just for the apps to 'work', but for their very livelihoods. The app I'm working on for a living was brought down recently because FB changed the name of a method in their javascript library. Once…