Ignore Facebook As Much As Possible
What should we do with Facebook, this '
glorified Flickr'? Facebook ads (and Mark Zuckerberg) may shout about Facebook being an '
agent of change' and all that B.S. but fact is, Facebook has become a powerful force of misinformation, especially in today's polarized societies and nationalist governments, fueling echo chambers and making billions along the way with gloried display ads.
During the recent US General Elections, President Obama called
Facebook a 'dust cloud of nonsense.'
Nieman Lab, which studies media, says
Facebook has become a sewer of misinformation. Facebook has also been called the
world's leading distributor of lies. Quickly Facebook is losing whatever goodwill it had.
What can be done to fix the Facebook problem?
1. Time for FB to start acting like a media company, and taking the responsibility.
Hire editors to manage what shows up in its Trending section.
Better, hire a team of journalists and charge them with separating at least the worst of the fake news from the stream.
But Facebook doesn't want the responsibility, and hides like a coward behind the '
platform' excuse.
2. Time for governments to regulate Facebook's walled garden, or at least reset regulations for what so-called 'platforms' are required to do.
This is not some poor platforms we are talking about here. Google and Facebook make billions without taking the full responsibility their reach foists on them.
3. Ignore Facebook itself.
Or commit yourself to seeing the latest friends and family update, keeping in mind that Facebook doesn't produce the news, it is your friends etc who pushing the shit down your throat. If you need the news, go to the newspaper's site.
The journalist will thank you too. Facebook doesn't pay for the production of good news and opinions.
Facebook has only made fake news and uninformed opinion easier to spread, and Zuckerberg knows that the market or government/s don't punish it for doing some shitty thing day after day. (If it helps the case, just the other day Facebook mistakenly showed
memorial banners on profile pages implying users were dead.
During the current backlash against Facebook regarding fake news stories during the US General elections, Mark Zuckerberg denies all responsibility, only vaguely saying '
there's so much more we need to do'.
Oh great. But it is not Facebook but we who need to do much and stop using Facbeook for our news and helpful information source. When did we loose our common sense?
All day long, you all are busy refreshing your FB feed. Stop. Take time out and check out the world outside, starting with some news that you don't agree with. Talk to people with views different from yours. Don't let Facebook help you dig your prejudice-lined cave too deep. Even Narcissus would be ashamed if he looked at you right now.
Whatever happens, for sake of humanity, I hope people use Facebook only what it was meant to do, news and updates from friends and family, not fake news and poison stuff from people posing as friends.
Labels: facebook
Why Facebook advertising is a waste of money
Came across this smart writeup on how
Facebook advertising waste advertisers' money. We knew this always, but the explanation is very good:
I once liked a dance company on Facebook because I know the person who made their website. Now I see adverts for dance productions. That's not advertising gold; that's a waste of advertising money.
I reckon most people's profiles are like this - a few likes or posts about something that you'd never actually buy and all that ad money is just thrown away. 90% of the adverts could be getting your profile wrong but simple confirmation bias makes us notice that 10% far more than the useless, poorly targeted adverts, so when advertisers survey people they get the impression their profiling is working. Or worse, the ad networks know that the profiling doesn't work but they carry on the myth in order to charge advertisers more.
I might well be wrong on this, but while I see adverts for things that have no appeal to me I'll keep suspecting profiling doesn't actually work.
Seems only internet marketing agencies and Ad networks, with their overpaid 'marketing experts' and their lesser-paid 'army of trolls' push the case for more FB advertising, polishing the turd masquerading as a golden egg (for some, maybe).
Also read:
Can Adwords help sell ebooks? No.
Labels: advertising. online advertising, facebook
Staying in touch via Facebook is over-rated
Surprise brings delight in relationships. Tina Brown of The Daily Beast (19 million pageviews/month) says about her
non-existent Facebook usage:
What about Facebook?No, I don’t use Facebook. I absolutely don’t want to stay in touch with everybody in my past. I really believe in falling out of touch with people.
...There’s something very healthy about not seeing someone for three years, not knowing what they’re doing, running into them, and finding that they’re now utterly changed. You know, they have gray hair now and they’re divorced. If I was on Facebook, I would know all those things, and I don’t want to know them.
Labels: facebook
The man who wants Facebook censored doesn't use Facebook himself
Vinay Rai, the censorship crusader India doesn't need, is a journalist (edits a Weekly Urdu publication Akbari) on his 'quest' to rid online websites of 'bad stuff':
WSJ: Why didn’t you notify the social networking Web sites of the content and ask them to remove it – many sites offer such functionality?
VR: I did not deem it appropriate to approach foreign companies myself. I put my point across to the government who, in my view, is the best body to pursue this with multinationals.
and,
WSJ: How often do you visit these sites? Do you have a Facebook account?VR: I’m not too active on social media. I registered on Facebook over 2 years ago but deactivated my account a few months later. This was because my inbox was flooded with external applications, requests and games sent by unknown users via the website. Since I wasn’t too familiar with the content, I deactivated my account.
WSJ: How did you collect information from Facebook pages and groups if you weren’t a registered user?VR: Several readers of our newspaper, Akbari, alerted us to defamatory and abusive content on these social networking sites. Being a journalist, I pursued the matter. Furthermore, you don’t necessarily need to register to browse content on groups and pages on Facebook.
Labels: censorship, facebook, india
Social Shower curtains: Next up, Social Work Curtains
Yes, how about a
social work curtain? Cue image of a man intently facing the screen at work, and instead of work it is just Facebook that he is gawking at.
Found atLabels: facebook, graphic, social media
Who is the better sharer?: Assange vs. Zuckerberg
Labels: facebook, wikileaks
Is Facebook dying?: A prologue
 |
| The truth of a Facebook news feed |
We know old people send the young to war for their benefit. We should also know that as websites get older, they will use all kinds of tricks to make money from their traditionally young users. When Julian Assange calls Facebook a '
spying machine', he is simple stating the truth.
Ryan O'Connell writes, '
Is Facebook over?'. He explains:
Like Myspace and Friendster before it, Facebook might be approaching its social network sell-by date. The redesign is shitty, the photo albums are structured in such a way that makes lurking less fun, and the people who were the original users are growing up and feeling more mature on Twitter.
To paraphrase someone:
"No one went bankrupt underestimating the stupidity of young people."
Ryan ends with this thought:
Who knows though? Maybe Facebook is going to last forever. Maybe a new generation of kids will always take solace in a website that allows you to “poke” people.
The above graphic is
from a Tumblr blog, found via Ryan. Click on it for a larger view.
There is much truth in it. It says what I have been wanting to say about the activity on my Facebook news feed for a long time now - lots of people with lots of spare time, idling away in their boring jobs, trying to justify the banalities of modern life through shares, pokes and spam.
Boring lives lead to boring newsfeeds. And, when we have had enough of this boring shit, we will know Facebook is dying.
Labels: facebook, graphic
Study says Facebook Pages Less Effective than Search Ads and Email Newsletters for Most Businesses
Other than businesses which involve constant engagement with regular customers (
cafes, restaurants, fashion items etc.), it seems most other businesses do not find Facebook Pages that useful to drum up business. A new study by Forrester says that
Facebook Presence is less effective than search advertisements or email newsletters.
Basically, users did not expect to get that much amount of Spam in their newsfeed (and email) by '
Liking' the corporate pages on Facebook.
Labels: advertising. online advertising, facebook
James Ellroy says goodbye to Facebook
James Ellroy, the author famous for crime novels such as "LA Confidential", "American Tabloid, and "Black Dahlia", among other well-known works, has
stopped using Facebook.He would rather use his own website to promote his books.
Via:
Timemachinego Labels: books, facebook
How much Facebook do you know?
Labels: facebook
Twitter vs. Facebook, Part 1
The battle between Tweets and Status updates rages on. Chris Sacca, a Silicon Valley investor who invested in Twitter, says:
"When Facebook goes down, everyone comes to Twitter to talk about it. When Twitter goes down, the world falls mute."
Via
The GuardianLabels: facebook, twitter
Rise of the Machines: The Cloud strikes back, Facebook edition
As more and more internet users use online services to store their information, pass time, and do whatever they do online, time has come for them to decide what information they store online, including social networking sites such as Facebook. Time also for some strict laws and regulation for the internet cloud, especially about
ownership of data -
who owns what and why?Consumerist has written about Facebook's New Terms of Service, where they have done with the
old one, which said that when you closed an account on Facebook, any rights Facebook claimed to the original content you uploaded would expire.
The New
Facebook Terms of Use says,
The following sections will survive any termination of your use of the Facebook Service: Prohibited Conduct, User Content, Your Privacy Practices, Gift Credits, Ownership; Proprietary Rights, Licenses, Submissions, User Disputes; Complaints, Indemnity, General Disclaimers, Limitation on Liability, Termination and Changes to the Facebook Service, Arbitration, Governing Law; Venue and Jurisdiction and Other.
What does that mean?Basically, the TOS gives Facebook a
'perpetual, unlimited, do-whatever-they-want', rights to your data.
What can Facebook can do with your information once you are out?
Here are some ideas:
1. Sell your information to marketers, market researchers, basically outsourcing the spamming job.
2. Mine and re-purpose your data - pictures, quotes, links...or, sell them to startups who want to seed their website. BTW, this will be the last thing they will do before switching off the lights.
3.
Pore over your relationships - your boss, your company, your friends, your family and spam them as well.
4. Provide your contact data to snoops, recovery agents, government agencies for a fee.
5. Sue you for publishing your own article, pictures elsewhere.
This area sure needs some urgent regulation from the technologically savvy Obama administration, which in turn will set a trend for companies around the globe.
Related on Mediavidea:Web 2.0: also known as Big Brother, aka HAl, aka MatrixWhat a web 2.0 user said to the machineLabels: facebook, social networking
How Twitter will (not) make money
1. Twitter cannot make money because there are not enough scoops on
plane crashes and terror attacks happening on a daily basis around this 'pale blue dot' called Earth. A Twitter from a plane passenger do not a Citizen Journalism make.
2. Twitter cannot make money because try one might, the world cannot be on one single page.
3. Twitter cannot make money because friends cannot be bought. Twitter Users would not will
'sell friend connections between users and companies wanting to communicate with them'. Those of us who would, are not quite the demographic advertisers are looking for. Remember when out of work people clicked on ads for money? Remember Facebook beacon? It was going to '
change the world'.
Twitter will make money when someone like Google buys it, integrating Twitter with Gmail.
Labels: facebook, social networking, twitter, web2.0
Digital Sharecropping (and why Nicholas Carr is one of the real voices of web 2.0)
Nick Carr One of the few people who have written
in support of British folk-punk musician Billy Bragg's
op-ed piece in the New York Times, Mr. Bragg writes about how the owners of social networking site Bebo stand to pocket more than $600 million (out of $850 million sale value) after Bebo's sale to AOL goes through - without having to pay any royalty or other forms of incentive to the artists who helped make Bebo popular.
Some so-called web 2.0 experts of this world have rallied against Mr. Bragg's assertion, saying social networking like Bebo, Myspace, Facebook and others provide a huge platform to these artists, which is bigger and more engaging than Radio or TV - but, both Radio and TV pay musicians royalties for playing their music.
Come to think of it, I have a hunch that owners of social networking sites consider artists who post their music no different than how Google considers the new blogger - provider of free, long-tail content. Just like new blogger can't straightaway become a Seth Godin or a Nick Carr, the site owners do not think much about the artists because noone becomes Nine Inch Nails or Radiohead straightaway. Much is being made about how Radiohead changed the music distribution model, but would they been able to do that if they were new on the scene and not some 14 year old rock band?
For owners of social networking sites, creative people are fodder for growth, these owners are the new band promoters, someone who lets the creative- types do their promotion while the band promoters make money by selling the whole site itself.
The so-called web 2.0 experts point out that
the artists had the option of posting their music and videos on other sites as well.How convenient - in many cases, it is because of the artists that sites like Bebo and Myspace became famous, attracting other users and other artists - it is not a coincidence that Bebo is considered the TV channel version of social networking sites.
Comparing musicians who join social networking sites when these sites are still new and traffic is non-existent, to investors, Mr. Bragg says these artists should get a dividend when the site makes money.
If people think Mr. Bragg is wrong in saying what many have been saying private, then I think time has come to put an end to this entire web 2.0 charade. If people think Mr. Bragg is wrong to call for a share in web 2.0 sale profits, the participatory web is all about how smart people in the Silicon Valley are taking everyone for a ride.
When some so-called web 2.0 experts get righteous and respond to Mr. Bragg’s assertion by invoking the non-existent web 2.0 ethos, it is pukeworthy - you can be sure these web 2.0 experts are playing to their gallery of 250 other experts, sounding noble and all.
The reality is Web 2.0 experts have a stake in the continuance of the status quo in the web 2.0 field and if you want for an objective view on the topic, read stuff from people like Nick Carr.
However, if you want to start a me-too web 2.0 startup, read Techcrunch from A-to-Z, suck up to the site's owner, comment as many times as you can, and you are in the business.
Sites like Techcrunch cover web 2.0 startups - it is in their interest not to write about "digital sharecropping" - they would not want to annoy the cash rich founders and those 125 pixel ads, do they?
When Digg sells, I would like to hope that the Kevin Rose shares the money with his band of avid early Diggers, who are both the cause for the rise (and detirioration) of the social news sites.
In the words of Nick Carr,
"Digital sharecroppers of the world, unite!"Labels: bebo, controversey, Digg, facebook, social networking, web 2.0
9 solid reasons why E-mail still beats social networking
1. Because all the updates on social networking sites including Facebook still reach our Inboxes - email from social networking sites is the new SPAM.
2. Because we are getting tired of browsing profiles. Most of the people are like us anyway - bored, blank and uninteresting.
3. Because, unlike teens, school kids and college co-eds, we got to work.
4. Because, unlike social networking sites, it is not rude to send an e-mail to the SPAM folder - it is easy, and acceptable to ignore people using email.
5. Because email is the working person's most important social network - we can have all our important contacts in the address list, available in the chat section during our email sessions - Facebook is pretty late to the IM scene.
6. Because the next generation of email will have integrated RSS.
7. Because the next generation of email will sections for our favorite profiles.
8. Because a major part of social networking activity is SPAM - it is everywhere - on twitter, too. If they are not selling something, the people on these social networking are selling themseleves all the time. Everyone is shouting out aloud "Look at me! Look at my blog post. Look at my pic. " - it is all noise, and pathetic. A man can only take in so much in a lifetime.
9.
Because like social networking, e-mail does not make the service providers any money - how long before they start shutting down the social networking sites for lack of revenue?
Labels: e-mail, facebook, social networking
How to make social networking sites give a return on investment
From a great article at
Gigaom, comparing buyouts of social networking/web application sites; Bebo’s $850 sale to AOL -
$21.25 per user, News Corp buying out Myspace for $580 million in 2005 -
$27.60 per user, Ebay buying out Skype for $4.1 billion (and subsequently eating away its innovation mojo) -
$52 per user.
Finally, Microsoft’s investment in Facebook propelled its valuation to $15 billion – valuing 50 million users at that time @ $300 each.
Bebo managed to create a TV channel of sorts on its site.
Surely, buyout is not the only business model for social networking sites? Labels: bebo, facebook, social networking
Deal Briefing: Bebo, attractive, middle level social network site bought by AOL
AOL has offered to buy middle-level, attractive social networking site Bebo
for $850 million, in cash.
Founders: Michael and Xochi Birch, may leave the company after the sale
Users: 1.4m unique users in the UK; 40 million worldwide.
Minus Points: Bebeo has a small presence in the U.S.; strongest in New Zealand and U.K.In comparison, In contrast, Facebook is strongest in U.S. and ahead of Bebo even in U.K.
Plus Points: Bebo tries to combine the best of Facebook and Myspace - has Facebook'like clean look and engaging content like Myspace, including original content offerings such as Katemodern series.
Focus on user engagement: Users spend more time on Bebo. For example, UK users spend 33 minutes on the site per user day.
Potential of Social Network advertising: Results not encouraging so far but eMarketer says that by 2011, $4.1 billion will be spent worldwide on social network advertising.
Preparing AOl for a sale? Om Malik says maybe Time Warner is sprucing AOL up
before a potential sale off.
Labels: bebo, buy out, facebook, social networking
Why the mystery behind geeks is gone (and why SXSW-like conferences are nonsense)
After having borrowed some good news practices from mainstream media, professional bloggers have said 'enough' and have now returned to the old heavy-duty navel gazing again. They know they can't make money by writing about the problems with this world.
The world faces an economic slowdown - stock markets are tanking, joblessness looms, enough has been said about the home loan debacle and even the sage of Omaha, Warren Buffet has said that these are troubling times.
This doesn't trouble the Silicon Valley (one of the twin Capitals of the Blogosphere), which is obsessed about silly conferences where some of their own are worshipped like Gods and if a reporter tries to ask probing questions, the audience gets tough with her.
In this post-industrial, pre-nuclear, knowledge world, we are creating more Gods than ever before. Conferences like SXSW are temples where geeky pastors preach to the converted and then the converted fan out the message through their blogs and Twitter accounts, singing paens in praise of this person or other.
Some blame it on Google. An entire industry of blogs has formed up around covering these geeks and their love life. They are also saying that the Valley Entrepreneur geeks of today are
more obsessed with becoming famous that they are falling extremely short of bringing 'revolutionary' changes in the marketplace with their startups.
'Revolution', 'Different' - these were the calling cards for geeks. But, geeks are no more the 'cool' people they used to be before. The mystery is gone. Besides all those silly Facebook profiles, movies from Judd Apatow have also the done the damage.
No longer the lonely kid coding away (or, playing with Light Sabres) in mama's basement, now we know that geeks are normal people just like us - with maybe stranger fetishes. Now we know that the geeks have only read more computer programming and designing books than the rest of us.
Where is the mystery? The average geek (or nerd, of you will) is just as mad for money, girls and recognition as the rest of us. Only the order of these three crucial things may vary.
Result: Kevin Rose of Digg is content letting Digg be a mere niche news player, allowing the cabals a free run on the site. I rarely use Digg anymore. Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook boldly shirks away from hard questions from users and reporters, comforted by the cushion of a vociferous bunch of bloggers, API developers, consultants, all of whom have a stake in the growing hype around Facebook.
In the valley itself, there is a gulf. A cousin of mine, who lives in San Francisco, says he has never heard about these bloggers and New Media moguls that I say live and work in his city. When I probe more, he enquires about any web 2.0 startup for helping people who have taken home loans beyond their means, for whom foreclosure is a sure thing.
It used to be that earlier, the news media - TV and the big papers were the ones who held big functions awarding anyone they were pleased with (and who pleased them in return).
In this age of blogging, a new generation of incestuous, self-congratulatory range of events has sprung up, churning up large amounts of link love, which I think is the only reason for these events' success.
Labels: Digg, facebook, SXSW, valleywag, web 2.0
Facebook applications loosing their Viral mojo?
Andrew Chen reports that response rates for notifications, newsfeed items and other novelties on Facebook are falling, indicating perhaps that users are getting tired under a never-ending avalanche of application.
Is this for real?
If yes, how long before the bubble of Facebook apps bursts?
Labels: facebook, social networking, trends
When Newspapers and magazines try to become social networks
Fastcompany, the smart business and technology magazine has decided to get into social networking by offering the usual set of social tools including blogs, contact lists, bookmarks, media storage etc.
Jeremiah asks:
'Can a business publication blend journalism and online community to create something better than either by itself?'A charge for Radical change of business focus can be made.First and foremost, Fastcompany is in the business of reporting and analyzing.
Did the magazine took the dictat
'getting closer to your readers' a bit too seriously?
Will the target audience bite? Do they have time to blog? Most of the Silicon Valley types already have their own blogs. In many cases, if FastCompany 'members' (gulp, what a change from 'readers'!) choose to repost from their existing blogs, it becomes an issue of duplicate content, which Google won't like.
Is it something new? No.Tony Perkins'
Always On Network is active for more than 4 years now.
Will it hurt the usability?100% Yes. Displaying content from your reporters is top priority.
How to display User Generated content best?SEOMOZ's
YOUMOZ initiative is the best I can of at the moment. Readers can easily distinguish between content from Seomoz writers and Users.
The UI gets messed up.Doing a brief analysis, Jeremiah writes about too much data on the home page - new tools and buttons pushing writers' content back. Or, in some cases, disorienting regular readers with a confusing new layout.
Content always comes first.
Why do you have to get into social tools development and hosting business?Especially when many publications encourage reader groups, circle of friends on popular social networking sites including Facebook?
Are we seeing a case of
social networking fatigue coinciding with the trend of brands getting into launching their own social networks?
Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook says,”
We are here to serve communities, not create one."Will users bite and join publishers' social networks?If each publication starts doing it, logging in and out of each, considering privacy issues, will be a headache.
Think other ways if getting more news.
That article about the
Tipping Point being toast was great. We need more of those.
Depending upon readers to provide free/cheap content does not seem FastCompany's style.
Think other ways of branding.
Labels: facebook, fastcompany, news 2.0, social networking, trends
