Why i dislike how people use Facebook.

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Facebook was a great idea. It was great because it was an online method by which to meet people within your network and to get to know them before you drop by the bar. It was especially good for those who are shy. As more people started using it though something bad happened. Mid and late adopters started using the website.

In itself this is a great thing because it means that you can find man friends and communicate with them. It was a way of re-creating connections with people you haven’t seen in a decade or more. The drawback comes when people are used to it and have added their friends.

They want something new and they go to applications, they want more features and so the api mentality was applied hence the fun wall, zombie biting and more. The drawback is that when you’ve got twenty friends you might reject the same request twenty times. When you’ve got five hundred you may reject it five hundred times.

Another flaw is how people use facebook’s funwall and other wall application like they used e-mail before that. These people are sending out a huge amount of junk and it’s a problem. A problem that’s meant I use facebook far less.

Why are people using a new form in such a bad way, Why are people using a social networking platform for nothing more than spreading rubbish? Is facebook no more than an advertiser’s paradise for giving us junk. Beacon generated a large quanitty of negative press as a result of what it was doing with user’s data.

In some ways it’s as bad as television advertising and the freesheets. It’s got great potential but due to the lowest common denominator it’s no longer as interesting an application as it used to be.

How long till we start getting spam via these networks. Is there a place for advertising on social networks. Are consumers not active seekers of information?

I’m a blog reader. I skim through over four hundred rss items a day and I get a lot of information this way. I’m an active seeker of information that relates to my interests. As a result is there still the need for old media style advertising. Would not narrow casting and conversation generation become more interesting propositions. That’s what Chris Brogan writes about. It’s what Nik Butler of Loudmouthman is doing.

That’s what Danacea of Forbidden Planet has to explore, along with many other companies. How, in an environment where people are reading more and more articles a day do you create brand awareness?

How do you allow people to find out about your interests? Groups are one good way because they’re passive. You join a group, your friends see it and they may decide to join that group too, without you having to ask them to.

The whole concept of inviting friends to open applications is counter productive to an enjoyble user experience on fa(r)cebook. Why use a network that generates more work than pleasure?

Here’s a continuation of the discussion by Anne Zelenka of GigaOm.