This Facebook thing is getting crazy. Everywhere I look someone is reading it or talking about it. Two days ago, I thought it was the most popular pointless site out there.
Then I was thinking, when Blatchford first got ICQ, I said that was pointless, unless pretty much everyone was on it. Then everyone was on it. Facebook, speaking as a complete non-user, seems like persistent instant messages. Back in my day we had a name for that; e-mail.
Maybe that is the point though. Facebook has managed to fix the two biggest problems with e-mail, likely accidentally. I say accidentally, because they seemed to fix the second biggest problem first, which of course no one would plan to do.
The first biggest problem in email of course is the spam. Not having used Facebook, I'd be surprised if there was never a spam message, but certainly it would be far down from the 100+ I get per day in my regular e-mail accounts. I'd suggest that spam would be so low that it would be unnoticeable.
The second biggest problem, is finding out other peoples e-mail addresses, especially if it is a long lost friend. There is no functioning 411 for e-mail, and in fact most people try to hide their address to save the spam. This is what Facebook excels at. Seemingly every day, Leanne finds a new person she knows in real life to communicate with online. Doing the same in the normal web/e-mail world is impossible. Even finding others blogs can be endless searching and you almost never stumble across someone you know when you weren't looking for them.
I've heard people say that they pretty much never use email, they just use Facebook. All of their friends are on there anyway. So is that it? Is that the point of Facebook? Junk that old SMTP and the spammers that go with it and wrap my communication in a pretty little web-gui? Oh, and toss it a little picture sharing blogging action for fun?
But is everyone on it or is it hype. Are they one time hookups or a real means of communication. Can I junk e-mail for non instant communication with people I know in real life.
Time for a bounty. If 10 different people I know send me an invite to Facebook that will prove to me that it is more than just fun to look at and that others really do want to use it to communicate. I have 3 so far. I'll let you know how it goes.
Comments
I hear you on the whole "if no one is on it, whats the point?" bit. I checked it out a long time ago, and since no one was on it, left not caring. Since most people I know are on it now though, its convenient.
Quick question; Is it the fact that it may be just be a fad the thing that is stopping you from signing up? It can't exactly hurt to sign up, once the fad dies the account dies and you've lost nothing (except pride maybe?). I mean, at least it doesn't have the cheezyness of myspace, or the annoying/immature comments like Flickr, YouTube, or any internet forum.
No doubt it doesn't replace email or IM (yet), but it can be fun, and the photo sharing is very well done.
First potential time waster is just signing up and entering all my info and who my friends are and such. If I sign up then don't use it one month later, then I wasted my time.
Second potential time waster is if all the information amounts to is, "hey, I know you, cool". Really, I don't care for that, and it could take a lot of time to weed through pointless conversation.
There was a time when I would spend hours investigating new web pages (now web apps or web 2.0 sites), new games, etc. etc. Now I'd prefer filtered content. I have less time or inclination to spend on stuff I'll toss away.
I love FaceBook. It replaces nothing for me, it's just another social networking tool. I've reunited with some old friends. One old friend in particular who've I've never been able to track down any other way. We've since taken our conversations to MSN but Facebook brought us back together after 13+ years.