Since joining I get bombarded with requests to take part in various apps and games. I just want to message people and maybe discus thngs in groups. I don’t want to poke someone, or find out how similar I am to someone I already know. Facebook should make it easier for people to use it only as a messaging platform.

Understand that many investors aren’t looking for genuine innovation and utility. As long as they can get in early, ride the buzzwave, and get out with a handsome return, they really could care less. Today’s kids play right into their hands, spending just enough time on the latest fad to pump it up into the media stratosphere and inflate the valuation.

Looking for an inexpensive social networking toy, err tool? Wait a few years and pick up Facebook at its fire sale.

Anyway all the issues are not enough for me for hating FaceBook…

From the Web Worker Daily…

I’d like to propose issue number 11: PRIVACY. On FB (or any other social networking site for that matter) there isn’t a high enough level of privacy differentiation. I know I can choose “All My Friends and Networks” or “All My Friends” (or whatever), but at the end of the day, “All My Friends” are treated as equals when it comes to posting my photos/news/etc. In real life, I have a partner, close friends, work colleagues, acquaintances, family members and so on, all of whom I need to communicate very different things to respectively. Surely this is what should be mirrored in an online social networking environment?

Basically, I think that social networks are here to stay, but the whole novelty of them is wearing off (or at least is starting to). It boils down to users needing basic communication tools but with greater privacy controls. SN sites need to start playing a more constructive role in our lives, instead of leading to wasted time spent poking everyone – maybe then our workplaces won’t go banning them.

Oh, I always appreciate a fellow-web crank! Your points are rock-solid and hard to argue against, except from the POV that Facebook is a toy. Toys are very important, and can even teach us things. Facebook (and similar social network thingies) also have contributed invaluable ideas to the ongoing idea revolution that is the Internet.

However. I am also somewhat concerned when a toy, even a really terrific one, tries to take over the known universe.

Even more, I agree with you that as a web-savvy culture, we are still far too easily seduced by WYSIWYG interfaces, and should have outgrown that tendency by now. HTML and other programming languages should not be limited to a few. These are, and more and more shall be, the True Languages of Power. And as a bonus, those who wield them will find they can *also* make much better use of programs which don’t putatively require one to know a thing… like MS Word. (Try pressing + the next time you want to omit paragraph spacing when Word absolutely won’t let you… and you will have just a glimpse!!)

Keep it up, Ann — you are one of WWD’s best assets!!

I have reconnected to former friends/colleagues who I have lost touch with through FB and who I could not have tracked down quite so easily. Not everyone uses LinkedIn yet, and FB is far more user-friendly and fun.

I also disagree about the need to learn basic HTML. You don’t need to know anything to use Word, to be honest. You type and that’s it. Facebook is no different – and I have many FB friends, who have had trouble deciphering the Wall-to-Wall concept, as it is. Goodness knows what they’d make of having to decipher HTML to enter anything.

While I agree that not being able to customise look and feel is a downside, the uniformity of everyone’s profiles means it’s easy to find any info about someone. It’s going to be in the same place every time.

Great post, though. Really stirred things up and I love it when people diss the popular!