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Am I the only one who doesn't care about Facebook?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Am I the only one who doesn't care about Facebook?

#31

Post by lkozma »

aaroniba wrote: post #20

Facebook is a utility, not just a frivolous form of entertainment. Users depend on the service to manage contacts, share photos, and meet new people. A lot of important information flows through the facebook social graph. The posts here remind me of the guy who loves to brag about how he doesn't have a TV in his house. To each his own, but television has had a huge impact on business and culture world-wide. So even i…

I don't get it either. For people you already know, there are plenty of existing channels to communicate. As for meeting new people, come on, is there anyone who really made any meaningful relationship through facebook or something similar?

Re: Am I the only one who doesn't care about Facebook?

#32

Post by samson »

marketer wrote: post #21
kingnothing wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Convenient for what?

That question surprised me, because the purpose of billion-dollar businesses can usually be summed up in a few words. Everybody has different uses for facebook, which is one of the reasons that it is so popular. To me, being able to see how ALL of your friends are doing is invaluable. I can log on and see the the state of my friends' lives, and not just my college friends, but people from any given stage of my life.…

But why marketer must you feel the need to know all these things. Life is built of selective information that we acqiure, and often we are better off from the things we don't know as much as the things we do know.

Do you really want to be informed about friends who get married, but don't invite you to there wedding because your not in there inner circle, but exist in there pesudo friendship circle acqiured in college and maintained only through the convience of facebook. Or do you want to constantly read about friends who achieve certain success while you have not, or maybe the other way around, your successful and happy, and there not.

Such information I believe is better left to passing chance encounters as we all move on in our own lives after college or a particular job when we used facebook to stay connected.

your point on staying connected in given stages of peoples life is well taken, but other then close family and friends do you really want to know all that goes on in peoples lives when you should be busy living your own.

Re: Am I the only one who doesn't care about Facebook?

#33

Post by edw519 »

Please don't confuse "friend" with "acquaintance". Ask anyone who has ever had a serious illness. That's one way to find out who's who.

My real problem with any form of digital communication (social networking, email, voicemail, text, etc.) is that NONE OF THEM ARE SUITABLE REPLACEMENTS FOR GENUINE HUMAN INTERACTION. Is it any coincidence that the Facebook generation is also the Xanax generation?

Re: Am I the only one who doesn't care about Facebook?

#34

Post by samson »

drusenko wrote: post #28
nickb wrote: post #4

Nope. I don't give a damn either. Having hundreds of "friends" is pointless (how many of them actually know you well? less than 10?) and it's a lot easier to maintain relationship with those you care about through personal correspondence through email or over the phone or in person. Facebook is just a giant game designed for you to waste a lot of your time on it. I'd rater work on something productive... but hey, do…

it would be significantly different if you went to college in the facebook era

I sincerely doubt it. Everyone has his or her own purpose for using facebook, and on that acccount I won't question anyones reason for using facebook.

The real question which most people fail to ask themselves is are those purposes for connecting enduring. Initially it will always seem so to most people, but what about next month or next year when you've graduated or left your job. Those purpose that existed before will no longer be there. Will people be constantly finding new purposes to stay connected when you no longer desire to go to party's or have a project to complete. From that point of view its no different in the college era as much as in the...well how should i put this...real life era.

But thats the long term view of the utility of facebook which most people cannot see.

Re: Am I the only one who doesn't care about Facebook?

#36

Post by snorkel »

ambition wrote: post #22

OK, here is some of the "why" of facebook for those of us who aren't heavy users. Facebook is casual and useful. It's easy to set up an event or fundraiser, invite everyone you know, put up pictures about the event, and so on. Many comments show that there are expectations for use cases that Facebook really isn't about. "Having hundreds of 'friends' is pointless." "...looking for dates...met someone interesting..." T…

As much as I enjoy scoffing at Facebook I have to admit I've personally seen not-so-net-savvy people get pulled into Facebook for its ability to reunite and keep up with far flung friends. That it's good for.

Facebook is not however a lucrative environment for 3rd party applications. All this hype about Facebook applications must stop. Please everyone, stop it. It's wasting precious development time. Have you not seen the most popular Facebook applications? Sopranos quotes, horoscopes, lucky numbers. It's like shareware hell rising up from bowels of long dead usenet groups and has manifested its unholy presence as a Facebook page. It pains me to know that some clueless VCs see a future in that.

Major spoiler alert!!! Do not read further if you are heavily vested into Facebook development!!!

Here's the final truth: Facebook users are not willing to pay for Facebook applications.

Re: Am I the only one who doesn't care about Facebook?

#37

Post by drusenko »

samson wrote: post #34
drusenko wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it would be significantly different if you went to college in the facebook era

I sincerely doubt it. Everyone has his or her own purpose for using facebook, and on that acccount I won't question anyones reason for using facebook. The real question which most people fail to ask themselves is are those purposes for connecting enduring. Initially it will always seem so to most people, but what about next month or next year when you've graduated or left your job. Those purpose that existed before w…

ambition put together a pretty coherent reply as to why lots of people who went to college during or post-facebook found it pretty damn useful. now that i've graduated, yes, i do want to keep up with friends i made in college (and not just those 10 that i'll visit and keep in close touch with), so that purpose is enduring. yes, i do enjoy keeping in touch with people i've connected with, all through my life. and yes, i'll still want to have a quick, but easy way to stay in touch with more people that i could have before.

quite surprisingly, my mom joined facebook last week. she friended me and put up family pictures. i've had several friends from college and that i've met since message me about those pictures -- in a very real sense, it's joining my personal networks on many levels and allowing people to stay in touch with me and for me to stay in touch with them more easily.

Re: Am I the only one who doesn't care about Facebook?

#38

Post by tomek »

Don't care about it either now. I liked it when it was simple. And before I got to know how full of himself Zuckerberg is. I could barely stand listening to him giving a talk. He talks about social graph as if it was his invention and equal in impact at least to the invention of a wheel. An old good connections representation in the context of a social network. Doesn't look like a revolution to me.

Re: Am I the only one who doesn't care about Facebook?

#39

Post by irrelative »

webwright wrote: post #9

..."And Zuckerberg stole the idea anyway." Google stole the idea for Adwords, too. Besides, how can you steal the idea "a community for college kids"? We had one of these when I was in college (the earliest days of the internet)... It sucked, but a lot of us used it. On the caring about FB front, however-- I agree. Great article here calling Facebook "AOL 2.0": http://www.kottke.org/07/07/facebook-vs-aol-redux

I was with the author on that until that line. This group, better than any other I've found on the internet, surely understands how little the actual idea of facebook is worth.

Why didn't Zuckerberg's friends make the site themselves? Maybe because it was easier to not make it, and then demand money from him later especially after facebook became really successful.

Re: Am I the only one who doesn't care about Facebook?

#40

Post by jmpeters »

Facebook is like AOL and MySpace. It will remain popular. It will make a lot of money. It will make its founders rich. It won't live up to its hype. Given its closed, proprietary nature, it won't be where true innovation happens on the web.

I don't blame the Facebook crew for the overhyping of their product. That blame rests with the investment community, tech journalists, and a reasonable-sized chunk of the blogosphere, who collectively are about as discerning as a clique of 15-year-old girls. They think that what's "hot" is whatever they think everyone else thinks is "hot," which creates an echo-chamber effect surrounding every half-way successful web business that comes down the pike.

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