What an amazing Meme developing over Robert Scoble’s ‘theft’ of data from Facebook. Nobody is getting this right. Valleywag hates him/jealous of him the most so let’s link there .
Facebook has a terms of Service. Scoble broke it. It’s not like Facebook is complicated. You sign up, you are fucked. You get lots of potential, but loads of crap. The terms of service says it’s not your crap to export. Seems straightforward.
Basically… as the computer said in the great movie “War Games ”
“The only way to win…is not to play the game!”
Kind of like credit. You sign up, expect junk mail in perpetuity. You want to stay off junk lists, lock yourself in your own little black box.
Scoble claims to have 5000 Facebook friends. Whatever. I am completely lost and mucked up at 300.
The 30 plus year old age demographic is just not wired right to have more than 100-200 contacts on Facebook. Period. We are too old for this tool in it’s present state though we try.
I appreciate all the people who have friended me, and I have taken the time to accept most that were even vaguely real, but I am not, nor is any 30 plus year old, wired to clean it up. Once you make a mistake in social network friend acceptance (don’t lie, we have all done it), it spirals out of social control.
I think that’s Facebook’s true next problem. In the mentime, what a freaking microscope they are operating under in nerdville.
I hope they figure it out. Until I see some daylight or a real simple solution I continue to use it less and less. You will too.
One true glimmer of hope for Facebook – I believe one thing and one thing only, the nerds are always wrong when it comes to money and investing. They are ALL short Facebook.
PS – Just ordered the movie from Amazon. My kids will ove that movie like I did.
Who the fuck cares abt Scoble? Mainly lifeless geek wannabes I’d say. For everyone else (99.9% Facebook members) it just doesn’t matter. For most of us …young, old, American, International, 30 friends or 3,000…it is what it is… just another overvalued social networking site that very occasionally produces something magical. And what’s so bad abt that? Outside of nerdcille, peobably nothing.
H.
I am not smart enough to predict what might happen with Facebook, and frankly I feel the same about most of what FB provides me, except that I enjoy it being a central place for me to stop-by quickly and see what 100 of my “friends” are doing.
I suppose like in real life, I might have a handful of real people I care about though, and so the rest is just entertainment. Kind of like a reality show, in real life. You can watch what everyone is doing, instead of watching the news. That can’t be bad, but it certainly isn’t adding value. (other than entertainment).
More important, as a child of the Cold War, I devoured the video clip, and will indeed also order the movie to share with my kids. My expectation however, confirmed as we watched Red Dawn this week up at the cabin, is that “you had to be there” to understand and enjoy the Cold War drama.
Keep it up!
C
Ok, I am 34– so I guess that is why Facebook is so confusing and difficult to use. I have been poked and prodded on this site and I am tired of it! Particularly because I am not even sure what a poke is. Also, I can’t even find my “super wall” or understand how to write graffiti on it. I think I will stick to myspace where it is somewhat more intuitive over the ever populated facebook. Both are riddled with spam. But then again- what’s the point of either one of these sites? Is this technology the only way to meet new people post “War Games” era? I predict Apple to get on board with the whole networking business. Just today they were talking music industry. Why not take over the world?
i do remember you saying that a long time ago. Rupert is smilimng on this one.
I need a guest post about this from you
Dude, if I ever take a company public, I’m going to get it listed as WOPR (one of many reasons I am unlikely to ever take a company public). Kudos for raising your kids on the classics.
If it wasn’t for Red Dawn, Facebook, or Scoble I would never have learned that I could pee into my car’s radiator to make it go. Oh wait, that was just Red Dawn.
wolverines….
I just watched that movie. a classic.
i agree with fred when he said its not over, but the way i see it, they will have serious, serious problems. this goes for all social nets. looks good to be an app developer these days…
See this is what happens when you get all the nerds involved. It’s constant whining. They just ignore MySpace because MySpace won’t let’em in. Ha! No nerds!
Loved the Red Dawn and Wargames movies. Chris, I’m so old I was taught in first grade how to “duck and cover” under my school desk in case of nuclear attack by the Communists. Like that would have helped in event of a bomb hah.
I’m one of the few people not on Facebook or MySpace. I must be part of that first wave of anti-social people that hit the Internet years ago.
didn’t we go through this crap 10+ years ago, when we called it AOL? didn’t we all decide we were better off owning our own data and supporting open protocols? who said those who don’t study history are doomed to repeat it? it happens on wall st, and now it’s happening with main st.
facebook: you might as well rewire your toilet to flush in reverse
Conceptually I like FB, but it is not particularly intuitive and quite frankly is cumbersome to navigate. I think is definitely room for competition.