Facebook is Consuming My Soul

[Rocco Augusto]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4705794657' target='_blank'>http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4705794657</a><br /><br /></div>For the past few weeks a few of the editors here at Smartphone Thoughts have managed to get ourselves tangled into the Internet's newest time consuming addiction better known as <a href="http://www.facebook.com">Facebook</a>. A few days ago, after forcing myself away from the dreaded <a href="http://apps.facebook.com/pirates/">Pirates</a> game, one of the many applications available on Facebook, I decided that I would start putting the online service to use and created a Smartphone Thoughts group. I did this for two reasons:<br /><br /><ol> <li> All of the other mobile sites were doing it and I felt left out.<br /> </li> <li> I figured there were at least a few of our readers using Facebook and this would be a perfect opportunity to connect more with our readers.</li></ol><img border="1" src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/500/spt/auto/1188178746.usr8.jpg" alt="" /><br /><br />So if you find yourself stuck on Facebook and want more friends, or you need new people to bomb on the addicting Pirates game, feel free to join our group and say &quot;hello&quot;<br /><br /><a href="http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=4705794657"><strong>Facebook Smartphone Thoughts Group</strong></a>

[Mike Temporale]

I must resist....


must.. not.. join.....

[encece]

Please give me some honest answers to this...and I would like as many viewpoints as possible please.

WHY SHOULD I USE FACEBOOK???

I have a profile on there and I know it is the latest rage...But I'm not sure what I am supposed to do with it.

Just like MySpace, I still don't get it.

- I don't want 1000's of so-called "friends" that I dont know nor ever converse with.
- I have a personal webpage to post my thoughts, photos and doings. Is this what it is supposed to take the place of?

I originally thought this was supposed to be for Networking with people interested in the same things and business as you...but I have found forums are most times best for that.

Facebook is becoming MySpace. Games, Music, useless widgets. I thought it was supposed to be the more professional version of MySpace. But it certainly doesnt seem to be that way.

So please...talk me into it. Help me to understand. Please!

[Rocco Augusto]

I must resist....


must.. not.. join.....

resistance is futile! :D

[Rocco Augusto]

WHY SHOULD I USE FACEBOOK???

I mostly use it for keeping in touch with all of my friends back on the east coast. It is an easy way to keep everyone I still talk to over there updated on the going-ons in my life at the moment.

One of the main feature I found appealing was that you could have real friends and limited friends. With the limited friends, you don't have to worry about the occasional acquaintances seeing things about you that you normally wouldn't want them to see (IM screennames, email address, etc)

To be honest, Facebook really isn't anything special and if it wasn't for the Pirate game, I would probably only log on to check my messages. Facebook is however, lightyears ahead of Myspace which is a breath of fresh air as Myspace seems like it is always down or plaqued by some issue.

[Jason Dunn]

Facebook is great if you use it for what it was created for.

I don't want 1000's of so-called "friends" that I dont know nor ever converse with.

Facebook was designed to create more intimate connections with smaller groups of people. MySpace is a bloated popularity contest where people collect "friends" as quickly as they can. Sure, Facebook could be used for the same thing if someone wanted to, but so far most people are using it to connect with their actual friends, old and new.

There are signs of this changing as Facebook becomes more popular, but ultimately YOU have control over that - you can just decline the friend request, or as Rocco says, make them a limited friend. You also shouldn't be afraid to decline someone's friend request - I do it all the time.

I have a personal webpage to post my thoughts, photos and doings. Is this what it is supposed to take the place of?

Yes. The average person doesn't have the technical savvy to register a domain, launch a blog, fuss with a template etc. Sure, they might have a Blogger account over here, a Flickr account over there, some YouTube videos over there, etc. - but Facebook brings it all together in one place with a simple, fast interface. For many people, that's appealing. It's also appealing that the thoughts/photos/etc. they want to share are only shared with their friends - blogs are completely open to the public.

Facebook is becoming MySpace. Games, Music, useless widgets. I thought it was supposed to be the more professional version of MySpace. But it certainly doesnt seem to be that way.

Well...I don't know if "more professional" was the intentional - I'd call it "less whorish". :D If you want professional networking, try LinkedIn. Facebook's interface is clean and easy compared to MySpace, so I'm not surprised how fast it has become popular.

[encece]

Thanks for the replies...you have convinced me. I am deleting my profile now! :D

Actually, a sad fact in my life is I dont have tech savvy(saavy?) friends. Really! Almost none. I have plenty of online friends (here, modaco, others) but my life friends are razr users, non-geek, or just non-web 2.0'd. It's sad...very sad. I need to meet more "geeks"!

[ctmagnus]

Actually, a sad fact in my life is I dont have tech savvy(saavy?) friends. Really! Almost none. I have plenty of online friends (here, modaco, others) but my life friends are razr users, non-geek, or just non-web 2.0'd. It's sad...very sad. I need to meet more "geeks"!

Fortunately, most of the geeks are already on Facebook. You just need to find them and add them. ;) However, it surprised me how many of my irl friends were on Facebook when I signed up. And they just keep coming!

[Jerry Raia]

I must resist....


must.. not.. join.....

Oh just do it already Mike! :p

[Rocco Augusto]

Well...I don't know if "more professional" was the intentional - I'd call it "less whorish". :D

well, that is if you arent playing the pirate game. if you are, there are pleanty of wenches :D

[Mike Temporale]

Oh just do it already Mike! :p

Bah! I can resist. I'm stronger than FaceBook. :D

[Jerry Raia]

Bah! I can resist. I'm stronger than FaceBook. :D

You will be assimilated!

[encece]

I'm back on...but I still dont think I understand it...or need it.

[ctmagnus]

I'm back on...but I still dont think I understand it...or need it.

So, are you the Nick C in Philadelphia on Facebook, who is interested in Windows Mobile devices?

[Mike Temporale]

I'm back on...but I still dont think I understand it...or need it.

Bah! You gave in that easily? I'm adding Facebook to the blocked list on my router. That should help ease the pressure. :D

[encece]

A (real) friend wanted to play a game of Scrabble...so currently I'm using facebook to.......................play scrabble!

CTMAGNUS...like my brief try with MySpace, I dont want to have 1000's of friends just for facebook street-cred. So I wasn't adding everyone who asked. No offense to you at all, or anyone else...but if I don't interact with someone on a regular basis (online or offline) I dont respond to every friend request.

About Facebook though...seems alot to maintain, though there are alot of integrated apps like Twitter, and Picasa, as well as the automatic Blog import that make this kind of effortless in many ways.

But I know people who are totally consumed with sites like MySpace, I can't imagine spending hours in Facebook when I have a personal webpage that I don't update as often as I like.

AND, Networks and groups aren't that great either.
Plus I thik the layout is super busy and confusing at times.

I'd prefer LiveSpaces to share information if everyone (in the Windows Mobile Community) would subscribe.

[Jason Dunn]

But I know people who are totally consumed with sites like MySpace, I can't imagine spending hours in Facebook when I have a personal webpage that I don't update as often as I like.

Facebook is like anything else - it's great for some people, and useless for others. Myself, I like it because it allows me to connect with my friends in new ways. But don't feel bad about not loving Facebook - I've completely ignored MySpace, Twitter, and most of the other "killer" things that people love for six months then abandon. I use what works for me and feel no guilt about that. :D

[encece]

I like to try things out though....

Now Twitter...I was an early-ish adopter of that an am still using it daily. It's an effortless was of writing a mini-journal for myself as well as others who may be interested.

I think that may be the difference. I like Twitter for myself. If others choose to view that's up to them, but it's for me first. A first person service, if you will. (Where you speak about yourself from a Third person perspective, ironically).

Plus there are alot of cool things that can interact with Twitter. My XBOX will tell my PC which game I am playing and will automate a twitter. Posting to my blog automates a twitter. CamerAware (Paul Obrien's SpeedCamera/GPS LocationAwareness app) will post my start and end journey's to Twitter automatically. That's (to me) is just endless fun! :D

Facebook focuses on interaction...that's too much work for me at times. Especially will large groups. :)

[encece]

For someone who didnt like it...I played with Facebook for a few hours tonight. I think I can find a place for it in my online world...I just hate redundancy...so I'll need to work out the details of just how I'll use it! :D

[Mike Temporale]

Suddenly it's starting to feel very lonely here in the Anit-Facebook group. But never fear, I have the willpower to suceed. :cool:

[encece]

Like my sig? :D

[Jason Dunn]

Like my sig? :D

Haha. Dear me...enjoy it while it lasts, we haven't implemented our three-lines-only sig code. This site will not turn into one of those "the sigs are bigger than the posts" sites. ;)

[encece]

Your 3 line code has been implemented already so it seems. Originally I couldnt add the badge but I stripped it down and it works just fine on one line of code.

You're right though...you dont want those HUGE sigs to become standard. It ALREADY takes a long time for SPT pages to load with the huge ads that load sometimes. I couldnt imagine it if people were allowed to ad HUGE sigs too!

[Rocco Augusto]

Facebook is like anything else - it's great for some people, and useless for others. Myself, I like it because it allows me to connect with my friends in new ways. But don't feel bad about not loving Facebook - I've completely ignored MySpace, Twitter, and most of the other "killer" things that people love for six months then abandon. I use what works for me and feel no guilt about that. :D

You said it. I love the Pirate game but lately I have been way to busy to even get a few minutes of gameplay in a day. While I love being able to talk to some of my old friends from highschool, Facebook really isn't the most useful application in the world.

I do however, really dig the "link" feature they have. I gave them a few URLs to a couple of things I have done on my blog and they completely filled in the content, title and grabbed an image or two. Really handy if you want your friends to go on a link or just want to show them a quick blurb from an article they might be interested in :)

[encece]

Checking back in with my facebook thoughts.

I was getting into it for a few days there. Browsing all of the apps, writing notes. Then I found the UPDATE STATUS section and found it to be a possible replacement for Twitter.

Now, Paul ant Modaco had started an open source Twitter App that lets you update your Twitter status via your Smartphone. I, in my effort to learn Visual Basic, dressed it up a bit, fixed a bug due to an API change, and started to TRY to add more features as well as convert it to a PPC app. (My current device is a Touch).

So I am debating if Facebook's Status Update could replace Twitter for me. Possibly...but I am hoping they open the API to include external Status updates from outside of facebook.

In the meantime...I made a quick VB app called TwitFaced.
It is a simple browser app that opens Twitter and Facebook up in two different tabs letting you easily switch between the two. Nothing groundbreaking but I'm learning.

http://www.modaco.com/TwitFacedTwitter-Faceb-t259107.html

Dont know if it works on Smartphones...it may. If you try it let me know.

But I would love to make a real Facebook app with enough features to keep it interesting for me.

But I am getting into it more. I especially like Scrabbleous! :D

[ctmagnus]

Is it bad that I ordered this shirt (http://www.threadless.com/product/493/Ninjas_and_pirates_agree_cowboys_suck)?

[Mike Temporale]

Is it bad that I ordered this shirt (http://www.threadless.com/product/493/Ninjas_and_pirates_agree_cowboys_suck)?

Ok, that's a cool site. I just spent 30 minutes browsing shirts! There's lots of cool designs. :)