Kevin and I have just started a Facebook Group for the Hugo Awards. I shall be interested to see how this develops, and whether we get anyone other than the Usual Suspects involved.
Meanwhile I am becoming more and more disillusioned with Facebook Applications. I occasionally get irritated by the crass sales tactics used by the likes of Microsoft and Symantec, but they are nothing compared to Facebook third party application developers. The general process goes something like this:
- You see a message telling you that a friend has sent you something.
- You click on that and you are told that you have to install an Application
- Although various “about” links are provided, you can’t find anything about what the application does beyond a few paragraphs of effusive marketing spiel
- When you install the application you are asked to invite your friends to install it as well
- There’s a button that says you can skip that step, but if you click it all it does is say that you can’t install the application until you have invited N friends (yes, this is pyramid selling)
- There may also be a button that looks like it gets you out of the install, but it only leads to a commercial site owned by the Application creator
- You can’t abort the install – you have to finish it and then uninstall the Application
- Having finished the install, you discover that the entire substance of the “message” you were sent was an invitation to install the Application
- The Application looks like it was created by people who are not yet out of kindergarten, who think that Hello Kitty is sooo cuuuute, and that the height of comedy is to send a virtual fart to all of your friends
This reminds me a lot of the occasional groups of kids who get it into their heads that running SF conventions is Big Business, and if they start a con themselves then they can make their fortunes by ripping off all of the members, with predictable results. They have the same “business is all about running scams, right?” attitude.
Or maybe I’m just getting old.
I think I’m glad I haven’t jumped on the Facebook revolution… I may still, though, to set up a Costume-Con event…
Can you set up only a skeleton profile? One of my friends has just moved to Melbourne and insists on keeping his friends updated only via Facebook, but I really, really don’t want my own profile.
Carolyn: Yes, you can keep things very minimal. You might want to check out this web site for a list of recommended security settings, but you can go even more private than that. And it seems that most people on Facebook don’t get mad at you if you ignore the fact that they keep biting you with their zombies and werewolves, and sending virtual kisses and farts.
But it seems like your friend hasn’t got the hang of Melbourne yet. In Melbourne you only ever communicate with people over a latte in a coffee shop. (Or at MSFC, of course.)
Many thanks, Cheryl. We are just as latte- (or, rather, flat white-)crazed in Auckland as they are in Melbourne, but we haven’t mastered sipping from across the Tasman quite yet, alas.