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News & ArtsTuesday, September 1, 2009
Tech Facebook: It's Over
Posted by Bethany Jean Clement on Tue, Sep 1, 2009 at 4:18 PM
For those of us who did Friendster, then MySpace, then decided to sit one round out: Vindication!
1
Wow, the people in that article seem more annoying than Facebook itself. What is it about the New York Times that whenever they run any lifestyle piece, they always manage to find the most insufferable examples?
3
Opting out of Facebook, wow. What a message you are sending!
"I will not kowtow to trends... unless said kowtowing becomes trendy!"
Geesh, having a Facebook account now is akin to having a phone book in your house. How the fuck else are we supposed to keep track of hundreds of old acquaintences?
"I will not kowtow to trends... unless said kowtowing becomes trendy!"
Geesh, having a Facebook account now is akin to having a phone book in your house. How the fuck else are we supposed to keep track of hundreds of old acquaintences?
5
Yea, Facebook is really hurting.
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?s…
Don't let the facts get in the way of your "vindication".
http://www.facebook.com/press/info.php?s…
Don't let the facts get in the way of your "vindication".
6
Yes, I see the author's point and I think it applies to stepping back from Facebook. However, facebook has permeated in a way that MySpace and Friendster never did which is exactly why people now have to "step back"...and why I don't think it'll go the way of Friendster.
Remember circa 1999 when everyone actually answered their cell phones while driving? In bars? Etc? When people who used them at work were considered rude? People figured out how to manage their cell phones while still needing them even more because they had become so integrated into their everyone's lives. Now, everyone hates the one friend who pretentiously doesn't have a mobile phone because they are the one that stiffles having a last-minute "plan B" for drinks....everyone else can text "Place A too busy, drinks at Place B" guerrilla style but that ONE pretentious friend will miss out and so everyone has to wait for them to show.
Facebook I feel may be moving in a similar direction. People need to manage it and step back from the daily status updates, but isn't the one friend who is not on there sort of putting on an affectation? When you want to organize a 40 person plus party is just is so much easier to do via Facebook and the one friend without it suddenly seems very "oh, aren't they special that I need to call them seperately..."
Remember circa 1999 when everyone actually answered their cell phones while driving? In bars? Etc? When people who used them at work were considered rude? People figured out how to manage their cell phones while still needing them even more because they had become so integrated into their everyone's lives. Now, everyone hates the one friend who pretentiously doesn't have a mobile phone because they are the one that stiffles having a last-minute "plan B" for drinks....everyone else can text "Place A too busy, drinks at Place B" guerrilla style but that ONE pretentious friend will miss out and so everyone has to wait for them to show.
Facebook I feel may be moving in a similar direction. People need to manage it and step back from the daily status updates, but isn't the one friend who is not on there sort of putting on an affectation? When you want to organize a 40 person plus party is just is so much easier to do via Facebook and the one friend without it suddenly seems very "oh, aren't they special that I need to call them seperately..."
7
Yet another wonderful example of people getting high and mighty about something that doesn't matter, not in the slightest.
Sign on, or don't, have an account, or don't. No one outside of your friends and family cares.
Speaking of which, I wonder if my Friendster account is still active, or my Orkut...
Sign on, or don't, have an account, or don't. No one outside of your friends and family cares.
Speaking of which, I wonder if my Friendster account is still active, or my Orkut...
8
I know, I know…I'm an idiot for coming to Slog and expecting any real news but your spin on the NYT article is really baffling. Hell, even NYT's spin on Facebook is baffling. If it wasn't Facebook it would be another stupid site that you and others would plug into. Who cares. God, I hate Slog.
9
Really, really hating Facebook is an even bigger waste of energy than being on Facebook. The solution here is to get an actual life.
For the other 75% of users that just like keeping in touch with old friend or whathaveyou—I'm not one of them—I'm sure they'll be just fine until the next thing comes along.
For the other 75% of users that just like keeping in touch with old friend or whathaveyou—I'm not one of them—I'm sure they'll be just fine until the next thing comes along.
10
That NY Times article was akin to going to an AA meeting to get an opinion on the pleasures of social drinking.
11
I went through Friendster/Myspace, but Facebook at least lets me hide the dull masses. I sat out Twitter and couldn't be happier.
12
"What is it about the New York Times that whenever they run any lifestyle piece, they always manage to find the most insufferable examples?"
Probably the same reason why they fire all their journalists and keep their worst lifestyle and opinion editors.
Probably the same reason why they fire all their journalists and keep their worst lifestyle and opinion editors.
13
Hey Slog, I know this guy who quit you... and uh... so did a couple of his friends. They all think you're lame. So you might as well shut down shop and do something different, because obviously your end is nigh.
14
doesn't an exodus imply a movement to something/somewhere else? Nothing was offered in the article.
15
"The exodus is not evident from the site’s overall numbers."
nice how she doesn't let a pesky little thing like a complete lack of supporting evidence stop her from writing about it. no doubt facebook will experience the same decline as other online social networks, but five whiny anecdotes don't exactly make a trend.
16
What is it about the NY Times and anecdata-based articles? If three people at a Manhattan cocktail party do it, it will get an article in the Times declaring it a "trend".
The funniest part is how the article's actual content completely contradicts its premise: "The exodus is not evident from the site’s overall numbers. According to comScore, Facebook attracted 87.7 million unique visitors in the United States in July."
The funniest part is how the article's actual content completely contradicts its premise: "The exodus is not evident from the site’s overall numbers. According to comScore, Facebook attracted 87.7 million unique visitors in the United States in July."
17
I saw this coming months ago. The whole point was the ability to stalk potential ass, as soon as that became difficult the end was nigh.
18
STUPID STUPID BITCH. BETHANY JEAN UR TIME IS CUMMIN' 4 A PUMMLIN'. PREFERABLY WIF A JACK IN DA BOX BURGAH.
19
Yeah, more and more I come across complaints like this... Usually from people who apparently can't control their own time on Facebook, or seem incapable of exercising the myriad controls FB offers user over their own privacy and what gets shared with other applications and your friends, and even specific friends, and what you have to see or not see when browsing.
Jeez, people made the same complaints about e-mail when it ceased to be the new toy to play with, too...
Jeez, people made the same complaints about e-mail when it ceased to be the new toy to play with, too...
23
I'll buy an iPhone when it comes with holographic projection, MP3, vids, and games and not a moment before, @6. You can wait a little bit.
24
Aww man. I jut signed up for Facebook today, no joke. I finally wanted to see the pictures my dad kept sending me links to.
I already have 8 friends.
I already have 8 friends.
26
@24: Perhaps now you can be the one to teach them how to send the public links instead of the private ones.
28
@21: If you have Firefox, install the Greasemonkey add-on and use this script:
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/4445…
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/4445…
31
Facebook hate is ridiculous... use it, don't use it, who the hell cares. I moved across the country eight months ago, so I like to have some semblance of day-to-day connectivity to my friends in Chicago. A way to interact with them (i.e., here's these old photos or here's an article I thought was interesting) on a more casual basis instead of (or in addition to) long phone calls.
Use it however you want to use it (networking, getting in touch with long lost kindergarten friends, whatever) or don't use it at all. But the backlash is just bullshit snobbery.
Use it however you want to use it (networking, getting in touch with long lost kindergarten friends, whatever) or don't use it at all. But the backlash is just bullshit snobbery.
32
I won't get involved in the above discussion as I am not a FB user but i rec all FB users read the following, an "expose" on its owner/founders, not just the gnarly geek Zuckerberg who conceived it. The are right wing neo-conservatives. I'm sure Charles Muedede has something to say on it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/200…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/200…
34
I agree with @31 and others. I love having a Facebook page. I've reconnected with more elementary, middle, etc.-schoolmates than I ever would have imagined. I think that might be the thing that's most powerful about FB- that its networking is, or at least was originally, rooted in school affiliation. That's terrific!
Some of my friends are actually way more boring online than in real life and I often wish they'd just shut up. Did you know you can "hide" their updates? You can customize who sees your updates as well.
I read another article recently about the Most Annoying Facebook Users and I thought the author of the article was ten times more insufferable than most of my friends on FB, casual acquaintances or otherwise.
So really, Don't want a Facebook? Don't have One
Some of my friends are actually way more boring online than in real life and I often wish they'd just shut up. Did you know you can "hide" their updates? You can customize who sees your updates as well.
I read another article recently about the Most Annoying Facebook Users and I thought the author of the article was ten times more insufferable than most of my friends on FB, casual acquaintances or otherwise.
So really, Don't want a Facebook? Don't have One
35
All this original post and attached article speak to is the general banality and insecurity of the individual ego/personality. "Oh my privacy has was invaded by some quiz"! "Oh I was creeped out by my uncle's friend request"!
If there's one thing humans (particularly in America) love it's something pathteic and virtually meaningless to get (impotently) outraged about.
If there's one thing humans (particularly in America) love it's something pathteic and virtually meaningless to get (impotently) outraged about.
36
An Exodus is fine. Let the jews smear sheeps' guts on their hovel-posts in the hopes that their god will go on and kiling spree and the flee for the desert? This should worry the goyim?
37
I got tired of social networking back when people were still bothering with BBS's.
Facebook/myspace/friendster/whatever.com... they're all the same, who cares?
Facebook/myspace/friendster/whatever.com... they're all the same, who cares?
39
You let it take over as much of your life you want. For those of us that use it to keep in touch with friends we don't see very frequently and little else, I don't see why I need to stop using it.
40
Facebook = Phasebook.
It's little more than a high school bragging rights page about your boring/hot job, your boring/hot bf or gf, your most recent boring/hot vacation, your way old photographic reincarnations of when you were possibly attractive.
How you have nothing better to do in an airport (reading a book would be so educational) than telling your 'friends' you are waiting in an airport. And seriously, Seth, how can you friend someone with whom you've never drunk, eaten or slept? Seriously.... Wake me when you've friended someone you've actually met in 3-D. Get out of your hand, look up, face the world.
Oracle knows this sounds like sour grapes - which they are - Chardonnay prematurely picked on a weekend jaunt to the Napa Valley with Jake Gyllenhaal who hired him to write his next movie script in which there is no dialogue because everyone texts with teeny little fingers and believes real humans have small heads because all they know is Verizon's teeny big toenail-sized photos of the human.
It's little more than a high school bragging rights page about your boring/hot job, your boring/hot bf or gf, your most recent boring/hot vacation, your way old photographic reincarnations of when you were possibly attractive.
How you have nothing better to do in an airport (reading a book would be so educational) than telling your 'friends' you are waiting in an airport. And seriously, Seth, how can you friend someone with whom you've never drunk, eaten or slept? Seriously.... Wake me when you've friended someone you've actually met in 3-D. Get out of your hand, look up, face the world.
Oracle knows this sounds like sour grapes - which they are - Chardonnay prematurely picked on a weekend jaunt to the Napa Valley with Jake Gyllenhaal who hired him to write his next movie script in which there is no dialogue because everyone texts with teeny little fingers and believes real humans have small heads because all they know is Verizon's teeny big toenail-sized photos of the human.
42
I have no Facebook, Myspace, Friendster, Twitter, or any other narcissistic, ego-masturbatory bullshit.
No one gives two shits about what you had for breakfast (complete with pictures- aren't you clever!)
No one wants to see monthly pictures of your ugly, expanding whorebelly or the shit-filled screaming end product.
No one wants to read your vapid drivel about whichever idiot box program you're allowing to rot your feeble brain.
Unwarranted self-importance on blast- just what this already doomed culture needs. Fuck Facebook and fuck you.
No one gives two shits about what you had for breakfast (complete with pictures- aren't you clever!)
No one wants to see monthly pictures of your ugly, expanding whorebelly or the shit-filled screaming end product.
No one wants to read your vapid drivel about whichever idiot box program you're allowing to rot your feeble brain.
Unwarranted self-importance on blast- just what this already doomed culture needs. Fuck Facebook and fuck you.
44
I tried Friendster and then Facebook and to be honest I could only deal with both for about a week or two and closed the accounts. It's just too annoying to deal with. I think it's for people who need some sort of vindication that they have a life.
45
87,700,000 users? Maybe the Times called it a little early? @ 25: TheRain: I'm thinking you may be right. Best wishes.
46
That NYT article was horrible. Someone (the author) has an axe to grind with social networks and did a poor job of it. Most of the other comments pointed out that there are no facts in the article just a bunch of anecdotes from people who have soured on Facebook.
I enjoy using Facebook (and I do so responsibly) to stay in touch with friends scattered all over the globe.
I enjoy using Facebook (and I do so responsibly) to stay in touch with friends scattered all over the globe.
47
This article makes the false assumption that Facebook is used to 'network' and find people. I disagree. Facebook is replacing email, IM, Flickr, YouTube, the phone, etc. Networking and getting a large number of friends may have been how FB started, but it has evolved well beyond that.
And no, Twitter is not the answer. That's for boring old people.
And no, Twitter is not the answer. That's for boring old people.
48
Okay, making friends the "old-fashioned way" doesn't always work in this town, thanks to the notorious Seattle Freeze. If I've found a way to beat that via Facebook, what's the problem?
49
This was one of the most poorly written articles I've read on the NY Times. The arguments are totally illogical and pointless. I'd rant about it but I already did that at my blog. Barf: http://welcometoflavorcountry.wordpress.…
50
Okay I read the article. Didn't like the article, though. His evidence was "my friends are leaving facebook." Who cares what his stupid friends do? LAME.
51
Virginia Heffernan doesn't go outside very much. I find that Facebook remains hideously popular. I find old friends and acquaintances joining every day. None of my friends or family are at all close to ditching it, even those who claim they're not into social networking sites.
Seriously, did this woman base an entire NYT article on a clique of like ten people she talked to? Who the fuck's running that paper? I thought it was the gold standard of American journalism.
Seriously, did this woman base an entire NYT article on a clique of like ten people she talked to? Who the fuck's running that paper? I thought it was the gold standard of American journalism.
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