I signed up for Facebook today to see what all the hype was about. For those of you not living in my world of constant bombarded internet news, Facebooks is a social networking site that had previously been confined to College students. Meaning you had to be in college to use it. They broadened to High Schools and Work places recently, and then just this week opened up to the public.
I went through the somewhat simple registration process which not only included sending me an email to confirm that I'm real, but also a cellphone text message. You now have to have a cellphone to use the internet.
After playing with the site, importing this blog's rss feed and uploading a photo, I am left wondering what all the hype is really about.
To me, it just feels like a cleaner version of MySpace.
Maybe after using it for a while and connecting with friends and seeing what they're up to I'll get it more, but for now I'm left wondering what the real appeal of social networking really is, beyond wasting time (not necessarily a bad thing).
I've actually had this feeling for a while, and when we went to add social stuff to JamBase a couple of months ago, I kept reminding myself to keep it resource-focused. Sure, it can be about you and who you are, but let's really focus on the stuff people are likely to care about, like your favorite bands or where they're playing.
But this wasn't intended to be a post about my stuff, back to Facebook.
I think one of the appeals of Facebook to those on it (and likely those not on it analyzing it) was that it was exclusive. You had to be a part of the club (school) to join, so it had an inherent cool factor to it. It was a place where only students could go, it was just for them, and that felt good....I'm assuming.
Now that it's wide open and anyone can join, we'll see how much value can be extracted and if it can win, whatever that means in this day and age.
Honestly, sometimes I feel like a dizzy deer in headlights watching all of this internet news everyday. Time to go outside on a hike.
I went through the somewhat simple registration process which not only included sending me an email to confirm that I'm real, but also a cellphone text message. You now have to have a cellphone to use the internet.
After playing with the site, importing this blog's rss feed and uploading a photo, I am left wondering what all the hype is really about.
To me, it just feels like a cleaner version of MySpace.
Maybe after using it for a while and connecting with friends and seeing what they're up to I'll get it more, but for now I'm left wondering what the real appeal of social networking really is, beyond wasting time (not necessarily a bad thing).
I've actually had this feeling for a while, and when we went to add social stuff to JamBase a couple of months ago, I kept reminding myself to keep it resource-focused. Sure, it can be about you and who you are, but let's really focus on the stuff people are likely to care about, like your favorite bands or where they're playing.
But this wasn't intended to be a post about my stuff, back to Facebook.
I think one of the appeals of Facebook to those on it (and likely those not on it analyzing it) was that it was exclusive. You had to be a part of the club (school) to join, so it had an inherent cool factor to it. It was a place where only students could go, it was just for them, and that felt good....I'm assuming.
Now that it's wide open and anyone can join, we'll see how much value can be extracted and if it can win, whatever that means in this day and age.
Honestly, sometimes I feel like a dizzy deer in headlights watching all of this internet news everyday. Time to go outside on a hike.
posted by Andy at
5:08 PM
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