I understand the basis for doing this and, having always guarded my identity by using pseudonyms on message boards and MySpace, I was taken aback by this new openness however...
it has enabled me to get back in touch with people I haven't had any contact with for thirty years and I just don't see an alternative means of enabling this. Not unless some other social networking site becomes equally popular while promising not to give out your information (there is actually a company attempting to do just that. I have their free t-shirt. So far they are completely unknown, with less exposure than Bebo. Not holding my breath)
and, apart from the 'giving out your personal details' bit of course, I love the setup.
it has enabled me to get back in touch with people I haven't had any contact with for thirty years and I just don't see an alternative means of enabling this.
Yes, this is the one great selling point of Facebook. Unfortunately I don't have time to keep up with people I know physically, let alone virtually. I had the uncomfortable suspicion that the Facebook interface (which I can't stand btw - no easy quoting or forwarding of messages for example) made it easy to maintain a series of shallow relationships, but much harder to develop them beyond that.
Mind you, that's probably just me.
I consider myself to be easily available on the net - anyone who wants to find me should be able to find a valid e-mail for me through a web search -but that takes more time and energy then just clicking on a Facebook recommendation and I like to think that time and energy will be returned.
I wouldn't say that Facebook is without value - I'm concerned about the privacy policy and settings changing every month or so, I'm worried that any activity I perform on Facebook (or on the web whilst logged into Facebook) not only passes my information on to marketers, but information about my friends on to marketing companies - the highest bidder basically. That's the purpose behind all those quizzes you do, btw. Try out this facebook quiz from the ACLU (http://apps.facebook.com/aclunc_privacy_quiz/) (I, of course, can't.)
Facebook is like commercial television - it packages viewers (or users) for companies and it shows the same level of contempt.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
it has enabled me to get back in touch with people I haven't had any contact with for thirty years and I just don't see an alternative means of enabling this. Not unless some other social networking site becomes equally popular while promising not to give out your information (there is actually a company attempting to do just that. I have their free t-shirt. So far they are completely unknown, with less exposure than Bebo. Not holding my breath)
and, apart from the 'giving out your personal details' bit of course, I love the setup.
no subject
Yes, this is the one great selling point of Facebook. Unfortunately I don't have time to keep up with people I know physically, let alone virtually. I had the uncomfortable suspicion that the Facebook interface (which I can't stand btw - no easy quoting or forwarding of messages for example) made it easy to maintain a series of shallow relationships, but much harder to develop them beyond that.
Mind you, that's probably just me.
I consider myself to be easily available on the net - anyone who wants to find me should be able to find a valid e-mail for me through a web search -but that takes more time and energy then just clicking on a Facebook recommendation and I like to think that time and energy will be returned.
I wouldn't say that Facebook is without value - I'm concerned about the privacy policy and settings changing every month or so, I'm worried that any activity I perform on Facebook (or on the web whilst logged into Facebook) not only passes my information on to marketers, but information about my friends on to marketing companies - the highest bidder basically. That's the purpose behind all those quizzes you do, btw. Try out this facebook quiz from the ACLU (http://apps.facebook.com/aclunc_privacy_quiz/) (I, of course, can't.)
Facebook is like commercial television - it packages viewers (or users) for companies and it shows the same level of contempt.