i'm not quite this extreme...

[acroyear]

...but I almost feel the need to be.

I, Cringely » Blog Archive » Don’t be a Facebook whore - Cringely on technology:

There’s my money quote for FriendChat, PeopleRadar, RateMyEverything and a hundred other similar sites: “Rate my friends? That’s stupid” – Bob Cringely.

Keeping up with Plaxo, LinkedIn, and Facebook is bad enough, but I now sense that really ugly things are happening to those platforms making them less and less useful to me. It’s the rise of the social networking application.

You know what I am talking about, those applications that are built by third-party developers to take advantage of the social network ecosystem the companies are so proud to create but we all come to hate over time.

My friend Ira is a Facebook whore. He signs-up for every cause, group, or application sent to him by, well, anybody. Then what’s even worse is he expects me to sign-up too so he can send me whatever crap is the specialty of that subgroup.

I love you, Ira, but I just can’t do as you ask.

This is nothing more than social networking spam, folks, and it is sucking the value out of social networks just like mail spam sucked the value out of e-mail. And to those venture capitalists who see all these applications and rejoice because of the added network volume, which they think translates into higher valuations, understand that this very volume will eventually KILL every one of these companies, making your investment in them worthless.

If you think Facebook is immune to this effect because of its success, you are wrong. It’s very success makes Facebook even more likely to fail as a result. It won’t happen right away but it will happen when we’ll all jump overnight to some other platform whose only advantage over Facebook is that it lacks such sludge.

So if you are in touch with me for any reason please understand that while I will become your friend or contact on these services I will NEVER join a group, NEVER join a cause, NEVER accept an invitation (even if I actually end-up attending the event), NEVER become a fan, and NEVER, NEVER, NEVER install third-party applications.

Lest the reminder (again) be necessary: I'm not joining any causes, I'm not playing any games, and I'm kinda tired of the virtual "gifts" thing. Most are blocked, and the rest will likely be soon. I'm on FB because I am able to use it to keep in touch with people I've otherwise lost touch with over the last 20 years.  I'd rather read what people say about themselves and feel at least a small sense of restoration of what the deeper friendship was like all those years ago (or even today for my current local friends and family) than get "share a drink" notices 12 times a day.  I don't want a virtual drink - I want to keep in touch with people in order to some day coordinate meeting up for a real one.  I don't want virtual faire favors - I want to meet you all at a renfaire and if you feel like giving real ones, great, if not, love you anyways!

(I'll leave ghetto gifts alone, thank you all for not sending me any... :) )

I'll play with some "gifts" for the novelty factor, but once I get more than 3 a day?  That's it, it's getting blocked.

Let me describe how much I play computer games: I don't have a Wii.  I don't have an XBox.  I don't have a play station.  My last "console" game was Nintendo.  The FIRST one.  And it wasn't even mine as my parents got it (for my brother and father) while I was away in college.  I haven't played a game on a regular basis since network changes caused my last company's "Half Life" connections to be too slow to bother with.  That was in 2002. My computer hardware has ALWAYS been 1 generation behind "latest and greatest", and even today my main video box is feeling the strain when dealing with current Xvid standards (though I probably should just wipe the drive and reinstall everything from a clean slate).  If I play another game between now and the next palindrom year, I'll be surprised.

Comments

[thatliardiego.livejournal.com]

You forgot to add, "And get off my lawn!"

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

whippersnapper.

[turnberryknkn.livejournal.com]

(nods nods) Sounds a lot like why I'm on Facebook. Four-hundred plus folks, and almost every last single one of them is someone I've met somewhere outside Facebook first.

And it is nice that it's possible in Facebook to refuse everything I don't want. Which is pretty much everything but the most basic modules.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

yeah. I ended up trying to use Facebook as a communications medium re the Dance Ranger, figuring that it seems to be easy to spread invites. Thing is, I can't tell that joining a group actually /means/ anything. This might be because Keith made me an editor instead of an admin, so he can send out emails to everyone but I can't. Thank you for not being miffed with me for sending you the group invite.

I've yet to figure out the point of most of the notifications I seem to get on FB. I'm ever so glad that real party invitations are separate.