Tag Archives: facebook

Facebook Fail — Parents?

If you would have asked me a month ago, I would have without hesitation told you, “parents will be what brings Facebook crumbling to its knees”.

Like many others, I have been mulling over ideas for a while as to how Facebook is ever going to make enough money to stay in business and started thinking “surely now that parental units are signing on to the service to engage their peers while monitoring progeny” that Facebook had definitely found its way to ultimate fail.  Because, when has it ever been cool, or acceptable, for any adolescent to admit, not only enjoying, but actively engaging in the same activities as their parents…and publicly!?  As the adult-like folks were joining more rapidly, surely the kids would slowly leave and find a new stomping ground.  Even if your own parents weren’t playing web 2.0 with you, your peers would already be moving on so there would be no need to stay.

A mass exit of these young folks, who by the way don’t have income, creates a huge problem because Facebook has a better chance getting into a parent’s wallet by way of the child’s wants than the direct willingness of any grown-up to dole out funds for some seemingly useless service.  Think about games like Rune Scape and WoW.  These games are making loads of cash because kids everywhere are dipping into their parents’ cash stashes.

Kids abandoning their accounts doesn’t mean Facebook is completely out of the monetizing game.  It could change its plan to better target an older audience and sell dating services, or adult content.  Something older folks might actually pay for online.  But this is a huge reach and would probably upset a lot of investors who didn’t plan on buying into a glorified version of adult friend finder or “where are my exes now?” type products.  (Although, why should they be upset if they’re getting some kind of reasonable ROI?)

Seriously, though, it seemed as though Facebook was done for.  No way they could find real revenues now.  Except, then a tiny little game like FarmVille comes along and every Farcebook clown in town is signing up, sending neighborly invites, harvesting crops, and mom and daughter are exchanging ducks for cows.  A common ground, which according to The Business Insider, FarmVille creator Zynga is pulling daily revenues over $500,000 for these types of online social games where real human beings spend precious moola buying virtual goods.  (How now brown cow?)  Zynga then turns around and spends a supposed $50MM annually buying advertising spots on Facebook.

It isn’t adding up for me just yet, but maybe I’m missing something.  Perhaps Facebook has found it’s money maker.  Perhaps it will be the social network that brings families closer together, or what have you.  Or maybe it really is still just a passing fad.

There are three things to take away from this, if nothing else:

  1. While FarmVille seems like a ridiculously silly game, it’s necessary to remember that it’s really no different than any of the Sim (city, earth, ant, etc.) games so many of us enjoyed in the 90s.  Which is to say, “you were once silly too.”
  2. While Facebook seems like a ridiculously silly platform, it’s important to accept that it has awesome potential.  Not just for its creators, but for third parties, to capitalize upon.  We cannot just brush it to the side, and to do so would be small-minded and stupid of us.
  3. There were a lot of “F” words in this post, but there are two more we need not exclude because when combined they concisely describe the overall sentiment — fucking fascinating.

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Facebook De·sen·si·tiz·ing Us

It’s not limited to just farcebook, but that seems to be where I notice it most, and that’s when the moods of status updates don’t match the moods of profile pictures.  It’s somewhat unsettling to read something like “RIP ” next to a photo of some smiling head.  And then the next status update is something about grabbing a burger at the local soda shop, or other.  You get the idea.  But really, is that the length of this person’s mourning period?  I’m against announcing the death of a close friend or, even forbid, a family member.  I can’t do it.  I just won’t.

The other one that gets to me, is when folks are venting about their days, or going on about how difficult  their lives are, and I read these updates that go something like, “just want to break down and die” but it’s positioned neatly near a large happy face of one or two people getting along all nice and cheery.  What’s the deal with that, and how am I, or others, supposed to interpret such a mixed message?  I can’t do it.  I just won’t.  If you’re picture is happy, then I have to assume you’re playing a silly joke with words.  Body language is the true indicator and it’s been indicated in your personally provided photo.

But the absolute best, which has very little to do with anything, is when the twitterati start angrily hollering back and forth to each other.  It’s like they’re yelling across a crowded room for everyone to hear, and what’s the point.  How can we take anything seriously from any of these online social services when seemingly most of the folks who frequent are just a bit off their rockers?  I can’t do it.  I just won’t.  We can’t feel anything you’re writing as it was meant to be understood.

My pet rodent just died and now you’re  off to the park for a bit of Frisbee flinging.  Text me your twenty and maybe we can meet up, you insensitive clod.

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FriendFeed Your Facebook, Or Eat People

Before we get to getting on, let’s be clear that I’m in no way condoning cannibalism, but I’m also not condemning it.  Folks gotta do what they were programmed to do, and if that involves physically dining on people, then, let’s just hope it’s not you or me.  Either way, I’m not here to judge the eating habits of my web browsing brethren and, umm…what’s the female version of the word ‘brethren’?

Getting to the point.  I’m no stranger to Facebook connections telling me in real-time (real life?) that I either A) have a unique way of using the service, or B) that I update all the time, so I must C) always be logged in.  At least one or two of those three things is/are technically true.  And we’ll order it as so, to keep things simple:  I am not always logged into Facebook in the sense that folks are implying when they ask the question.  I do update frequently, or often, depending on your use of the English language.  And, I do have a semi-unique way of interacting with Facebook relative to those connections I’ve gained via the service, only in the sense that most of the connections I have are not, how do you say, early adopters?

Introduce friendfeed, the quote-unquote easiest way to share online.  The service that "enables you to discover and discuss the interesting stuff your friends find on the web."  (The major problem I have with that, is that none of my real-time friends, as far as I know, use the service.)  Done so through the simple process of signing up for and creating a friendfeed account and then connecting it to any and all other online services you choose to interact with.  Friendfeed keeps a steady stream of all your online activity, in one place, and feeds it to all your supposed cohorts, if you’re willing to call them that.

But I don’t use friendfeed for the friending feature; although, I do have folks that I follow, and some that have followed me.  No.  I use the service specifically to load up my Facebook, uh…wall?  I guess you would call it, to update my connected world about things I’ve found interesting on the web.  Well, mostly interesting.  I’ve also connected my friendfeed to these various accounts for a variety of reasons: picasaweb, flickkr, twitter, brightkite, my blog’s RSS, and, most importantly (also the reason I appear to be so active on Farcebook), my googleReader shares.

There you have it.  Once a Facebook eats a friendfeed, a Facebook user never really has to log in again.  The friendfeed maintains a constant connection while continually monitoring a user’s activity around the InterWeb and makes updates accordingly.  The one caveat being that you’ll have to access your FB account to find new connections.  If those connections find you, they can be confirmed via a mobile application on a cellphone.  (Very handy.)

The flip-side being, of course, that most users of Facebook require constant attention and if you don’t routinely post publicly to address their narcissism, then they will more than likely refrain from attending to your feed.  Hardly a concern, if you know what I mean.

Enjoy!

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Facebook Face Tags

I do this thing where when someone tags my face in a photo on facebook I remove the tag as soon as I am reasonably able to.  Which is weird if you consider that I tag everyone I can in my picasa albums.  Except picasa is a tad geekier since it does that facial recognition thing.  I find that makes it worthwhile to play along.  So it goes.

The downside to this behavior is that sometimes people take offense to having their work undone.  (Hey, it’s my face, I’ll have it tagged as I see fit.)  But just maybe someday, or one day, I’ll go back and re-tag those photos.  We’ll see.  In the meantime, keep up with my picasa albums.

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Google Friend Connect or Facebook Connect?

I thought it would be a difficult decision, but when it came time to push the publish button, it was no contest.  Google’s Friend Connect was the social connect tool that best suited my preferences.  Whether or not it suits my needs is a different argument, since I’m still not sure I actually need a social network component.  Generally, I intend for my posts to be read in your feed reader, which is the most efficient way to deal with blagger entries.  Still, on the off chance that anyone does want to congregate around my content, I’ve now made available the option to share within a specific social circle, Friend Connect.

I’m still learning about all the available features and gadgets, but if you look in the second sidebar you’ll see the members gadget.  Check it out and let me know what you think.  All you need to join or sign in is your Google account information.  For most people, it’s probably the same name and password you use with Gmail.  But if you’re one of those paranoids like myself, your Google account name and password is not exactly the same as your Gmail.

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