Results tagged “facebook”

It annoys the fuck out of me whenever I see commercials for a product or company who want you to follow them on Facebook or Twitter. Hey! Check it out, we're tweeting! We tweet! And put something on our wall too! Like us!

Aside from this annoyance, I could never quite put my finger on why social media doesn't work for companies, but Randy Murray nailed it:

The opposite is also true: businesses are not people. For a business to be social, it has to be focused and friendly, but it can never be your friend. I really like Apple products, I own Apple stock, but Apple isn't my friend. I don't need a social relationship with the company that made my car, where I shop for food, or the local dry cleaners. I do find it useful to get news and information from them, and someone to listen and act when I have a problem, but I really don't need another channel of happy talk from businesses.

At this point I've read and seen enough about the Winklevii to last me a few lifetimes, but this article in Vanity Fair was (another) interesting look into their minds.

Like why they won't let up:

In my opinion, it's all about how much pain you can make the other guy feel," said Dan Walsh, another Olympic rower, when asked to explain the lure of a sport that offers neither fame nor fortune, and why two highly advantaged individuals would spend their 20s pursuing it--the Winklevosses were then weeks away from their 30th birthday. "It's about trying to break him."

And the power of this new strategy is that it requires only modest success to get the Winklevosses what they want, which is not control of Facebook, but rather to cause Mark Zuckerberg pain measurable in pride and money, and through this pain to avenge their own ideal selves by asserting their will over his.

Ellis Hamburger over at Business Insider says Facebook is losing it's identity because they're hiding the 'Poke' button.

This is bullshit.

Facebook isn't losing it's identity, it's growing up. It's no longer the site requiring a college email address to sign up for. It's a multi-billion dollar company.

You don't see me driving across lawns or joining hacky sack circles like I did in high school. Doesn't mean I'm losing my identity.

Moving on......

Dan Lyons has been hit and miss since retiring his Fake Steve Jobs shtick (ok, mostly miss), but I liked his reaction to Facebook's F8 Conference:

And now suddenly we are living in that future. That future which only yesterday was the future now today is the present. Just like we mark eras using BC and AD, now we will have BF811 and AF811. Where were you on Sept. 22, 2011, when the world changed? I, unfortunately, was holed up in my grubby little office in a small town in Massachusetts. Nevertheless, I will never forget this day. Never. Ever. How could I? This is the day when Timelines was introduced. Timelines! It is, in a word, profound. Deeply, profoundly profound, in fact. "Facebook Just Schooled the Internet. Again" is how MG Siegler put it on TechCrunch. Which is a pretty amazing feat, coming as it does just a year and a half after "Facebook Just Seized Control of the Internet" as MG Siegler wrote in April 2010. It is pretty amazing, after all, to seize control of the Internet. That was bad-ass enough. But to then school the Internet that you've seized control of? Who but Facebook could do that? Good Lord I have to sit down and just think for a minute because my mind is reeling ...

Yes, he lays it on extra thick, but it made me laugh. Probably because I'm a wise-ass too.

I've been following MySpace co-founder Tom Anderson on Google Plus (yeah, it's the Tom who used to show up as your first friend on MySpace) and he's been on a roll lately with some insightful and witty posts.

This one was particularly interesting. It's a slide presentation by Vincent Wong on what Google Plus is really about:

NYTimes: Paterson Teacher Suspended Over a Post on Facebook

A first-grade teacher in Paterson, N.J., was suspended on Thursday after she posted on her Facebook page that she felt like a warden overseeing future criminals, district officials said.

From some of the stories I've heard from people who teach, it's very likely this woman wasn't exaggerating. Just saying.

She just needs to work not broadcasting that inside voice of hers on the biggest social network in the world.

PSFK, via, asks: Can The Facebook Like Button Supplant The Hyperlink?

Answer: No.

I'm really tired of hyperbolic headlines.