A few weeks ago, I asked all of you to share an interesting story from the world of social networking sites. Within the first week, I had 9 stories. I quickly noticed that these stories had the same pattern. My friend Nabila writes:
"So my friend convinced me to get a MySpace account. I literally copied everything from my Facebook and threw it up there. All of a sudden, MySpace decides I'm one of the "cool new people" and plants my picture on the homepage. Over the course of the next 24 hours I have 5400 hits to my profile, 350 friend requests and about 130 emails. Out of control.
Granted most of the emails centered around the theme of "holy crap, you have huge boobs", but when you get a letter from a "friend" it's the thought that counts, right? Another good one was from a native Arabic speaker. He wrote, "I like you very," which mirrors the word order of Arabic. I particularly liked the email from the "remember 9-11" site, which said, "honka, honka, I want to squeeze your t*****s". Very classy.
Anyway, I was totally amused by the whole thing. Who knew a pink halter-top and red hair could elicit such a response? "
This kind of story why I'm leaving MySpace. Facebook is structured in a way that's conducive to keeping in touch with your friends. MySpace, on the other hand, is designed to "make new friends." The problem is, every scientific study on the subject says that to develop genuine friendships, we need real interaction. A "Merry Christmas" eCard posted on the message boards of 200 buddies just doesn't cut it.
MySpace users, how many of you have one or two people in your friends list who you've never met before? How many of you have not talked to that person since adding them? Ask the same question of Facebook users, and I would bet the result is much different. Do you want to meet people who "like you very" without ever meeting you, or would you rather know what happens in the lives of your real friends?
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Breaking Up Online
Fellow blogger Brie Aleida at Taut Thoughts has a great post today on how to break up correctly via MySpace or Facebook. In short, she writes:
"Today the way we maintain friendships is different. Writing letters and making phone calls have given way to Facebooking and txting. The right way to break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend has changed with time, too. In case you are ready to end things and aren’t sure how or you are just curious, here is a step-by-step way to break up with someone and be clear that it is OVER..." [Read more]
Though the post is hilarious, it does illustrate a great point. The way people start, maintain, and end relationships has changed drastically in the last few years. Today, there is a whole new set of etiquette and social normals for dealing with this kind of thing.
Before the advent of social networking sites, a fight would start over finding the proverbial lipstick stains on a shirt collar. Today the dispute becomes both pettier, and a lot more public. Forgetting to untag yourself in a Facebook picture with your ex can lead to an angry message on your public wall from your current love interest.
In the past, there'd be a box of returned records and sweaters on the front lawn. now, the baggage is electronic. Anyone can sift through your returned dirty laundry if they want.
For an example, take the (in)famous case of a wife uploading her divorce rant to YouTube. To date, the video has gotten thousands of hits. Lawyers say the video won't help her divorce case, but I imagine it was done more for catharsis than monetary gain.
Of course, for those of us happy with our relationship, this is mostly just another form of sick entertainment, akin to watching fists fly on Jerry Springer. But then, I guess that's the intent, isn't it?
"Today the way we maintain friendships is different. Writing letters and making phone calls have given way to Facebooking and txting. The right way to break up with your boyfriend or girlfriend has changed with time, too. In case you are ready to end things and aren’t sure how or you are just curious, here is a step-by-step way to break up with someone and be clear that it is OVER..." [Read more]
Though the post is hilarious, it does illustrate a great point. The way people start, maintain, and end relationships has changed drastically in the last few years. Today, there is a whole new set of etiquette and social normals for dealing with this kind of thing.
Before the advent of social networking sites, a fight would start over finding the proverbial lipstick stains on a shirt collar. Today the dispute becomes both pettier, and a lot more public. Forgetting to untag yourself in a Facebook picture with your ex can lead to an angry message on your public wall from your current love interest.
In the past, there'd be a box of returned records and sweaters on the front lawn. now, the baggage is electronic. Anyone can sift through your returned dirty laundry if they want.
For an example, take the (in)famous case of a wife uploading her divorce rant to YouTube. To date, the video has gotten thousands of hits. Lawyers say the video won't help her divorce case, but I imagine it was done more for catharsis than monetary gain.
Of course, for those of us happy with our relationship, this is mostly just another form of sick entertainment, akin to watching fists fly on Jerry Springer. But then, I guess that's the intent, isn't it?
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Netscapisation: The Next Big Thing?
Everyone these days has a profile on a networking site like Facebook or MySpace. These first-generation sites set the standard in their fields. For example, Facebook started out as a network for college students specifically, but opened its doors to any interested user in an effort to compete with MySpace. MySpace, on the other hand, has borrowed some of Facebook's ideas. For example, users can now tag themselves and each other in MySpace images, a feature long missing on the older site. This competition has seen a rapid evolution of the way we network online, a far cry from plain-text profiles and boring message boards.
Recently, I decided to abstain from MySpace altogether. I liked Facebook's cleaner, more efficient layout, and the lack of garish, hard-to-read profiles. Of course, I was faced with the same problem as anyone else who has ever tried to make this jump. It was like the Iron Curtain stood between the two sites. Some of my friends already had Facebook profiles, but how could I keep up with the lives of those who refused to leave their beloved MySpace? A recent article in The Economist argues that it's only a matter of time before the "walled gardens" of proprietary social networking go the way of Internet providers like AOL, Compuserve and Prodigy.
The term "Netscapisation" refers to the abandoning of old, proprietary systems in favor of open standards. This is taken from the way that users migrated from, say, the closed-off America Online in the late '90s. A sizable population left AOL's internal chats, instant messaging and exclusive features in favor of the electronic frontier of an Internet and World Wide Web governed by open standards and brought into their home by browsers like Netscape. No longer was it a problem for an AOL user and a user of, say, Earthlink to share links and be able to see the same content.
Now, companies like Google aim to bring open standards to social networking sites. The search giant has already launched its own networking site, orkut, done in an elegant, clean, typically "Google" style. Now, it's trying to open the channels of communication with other sites. Ning, Bebo and MySpace have already signed on in support of Google's OpenSocial API. This is basically a set of programming standards and libraries that will allow people to use the same app (such as a comment board or music player) on any networking site that supports OpenSocial.
The standard premiered last fall on several sites. Aside from the capability to make games and other fun widgets, apps written using the OpenSocial API have methods for accessing things like your friends list or profile, the things at the core of a site like MySpace. But will they succeed? One application, iLike on the Ning network, took just 20 minutes to crack, fueling concerns about security. After all, who would want to use something like that if some unsavory individual could gain access to your private messages and friends list? All the same, saying that Google's solution isn't the right one doesn't mean a right one won't be along soon.
Facebook has been developing its own platform and has its own following of developers. If it proves to be better, it would be a small step to open up the standards and let people on other networks use the same Vampire game or the same Takes All Types app. The next stage would be the ability to send messages and get news feeds from one site to another, through media like e-mail and RSS. What does this mean to the user? The Iron Curtain is coming down.
Recently, I decided to abstain from MySpace altogether. I liked Facebook's cleaner, more efficient layout, and the lack of garish, hard-to-read profiles. Of course, I was faced with the same problem as anyone else who has ever tried to make this jump. It was like the Iron Curtain stood between the two sites. Some of my friends already had Facebook profiles, but how could I keep up with the lives of those who refused to leave their beloved MySpace? A recent article in The Economist argues that it's only a matter of time before the "walled gardens" of proprietary social networking go the way of Internet providers like AOL, Compuserve and Prodigy.
The term "Netscapisation" refers to the abandoning of old, proprietary systems in favor of open standards. This is taken from the way that users migrated from, say, the closed-off America Online in the late '90s. A sizable population left AOL's internal chats, instant messaging and exclusive features in favor of the electronic frontier of an Internet and World Wide Web governed by open standards and brought into their home by browsers like Netscape. No longer was it a problem for an AOL user and a user of, say, Earthlink to share links and be able to see the same content.
Now, companies like Google aim to bring open standards to social networking sites. The search giant has already launched its own networking site, orkut, done in an elegant, clean, typically "Google" style. Now, it's trying to open the channels of communication with other sites. Ning, Bebo and MySpace have already signed on in support of Google's OpenSocial API. This is basically a set of programming standards and libraries that will allow people to use the same app (such as a comment board or music player) on any networking site that supports OpenSocial.
The standard premiered last fall on several sites. Aside from the capability to make games and other fun widgets, apps written using the OpenSocial API have methods for accessing things like your friends list or profile, the things at the core of a site like MySpace. But will they succeed? One application, iLike on the Ning network, took just 20 minutes to crack, fueling concerns about security. After all, who would want to use something like that if some unsavory individual could gain access to your private messages and friends list? All the same, saying that Google's solution isn't the right one doesn't mean a right one won't be along soon.
Facebook has been developing its own platform and has its own following of developers. If it proves to be better, it would be a small step to open up the standards and let people on other networks use the same Vampire game or the same Takes All Types app. The next stage would be the ability to send messages and get news feeds from one site to another, through media like e-mail and RSS. What does this mean to the user? The Iron Curtain is coming down.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Takes All Types: Social Networks Give Blood Drives A Hand
Last month, social networking took on a role that makes people like me feel less guilty about spending valuable time on Facebook. Takes All Types, a project devoted to increasing the pool of available blood donors, premiered an application on the networking site which will notify registered users of blood drives in their area. Just fill out the registration form along with your blood type, and the app will contact you via e-mail, phone, fax, RSS feed or a text message whenever your blood is needed.
"Today, our blood supply comes from a pool comprising 2%-5% of the population," says Ben Bergman, who, along with fellow innovator Richie Hecker, grew the idea out of a desire to use the crowd sourcing potential of Facebook for good instead of evil, "and the typical donor is a male between the ages of 40 and 50." Their goal now is to harness the ever-growing social network to attract a new generation of donors and increase the blood supplies available to hospitals.
The project aims to tackle several problems that keep blood perpetually in short supply. Aside from increasing the donor pool, live notifications of blood drives will reduce the need to store blood. According to America's Blood Centers, blood is stored for up to 42 days, meaning a resupply is necessary once every five or six weeks. Directing notifications to people of specific blood types also has the potential to increase donations from the rare groups, such as people who have Type O- blood, who are universal donors but can only receive from other Type O- donors.
While Facebook is the first platform, TAT does plan to roll out similar initiatives for other sites such as MySpace, iVillage and LinkedIn. The MySpace effort is currently in the final stages of development and should be ready within a few weeks, according to Bergman. They also plan to reduce the number of volunteers and increase the number of professionals to support the database of donors as it grows, as well as the applications themselves. Also on the agenda is the ability for users to schedule blood drives in their own communities.
If you want to help, you can do so by registering with the app, spreading the word, or donating to TAT, which is a registered non-profit organization. Anyone interested in joining the effort can reach the Facebook app here. If you want to help but don't use Facebook, you can visit the TAT Website to find out about other ways to promote this cause.
"Today, our blood supply comes from a pool comprising 2%-5% of the population," says Ben Bergman, who, along with fellow innovator Richie Hecker, grew the idea out of a desire to use the crowd sourcing potential of Facebook for good instead of evil, "and the typical donor is a male between the ages of 40 and 50." Their goal now is to harness the ever-growing social network to attract a new generation of donors and increase the blood supplies available to hospitals.
The project aims to tackle several problems that keep blood perpetually in short supply. Aside from increasing the donor pool, live notifications of blood drives will reduce the need to store blood. According to America's Blood Centers, blood is stored for up to 42 days, meaning a resupply is necessary once every five or six weeks. Directing notifications to people of specific blood types also has the potential to increase donations from the rare groups, such as people who have Type O- blood, who are universal donors but can only receive from other Type O- donors.
While Facebook is the first platform, TAT does plan to roll out similar initiatives for other sites such as MySpace, iVillage and LinkedIn. The MySpace effort is currently in the final stages of development and should be ready within a few weeks, according to Bergman. They also plan to reduce the number of volunteers and increase the number of professionals to support the database of donors as it grows, as well as the applications themselves. Also on the agenda is the ability for users to schedule blood drives in their own communities.
If you want to help, you can do so by registering with the app, spreading the word, or donating to TAT, which is a registered non-profit organization. Anyone interested in joining the effort can reach the Facebook app here. If you want to help but don't use Facebook, you can visit the TAT Website to find out about other ways to promote this cause.
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