What Am I Missing?
OK, I’ll admit it right up front I’m an old douche bag and I’m not taking advantage of any new technologies With that said, can anyone out there tell me the appeal of Face Book? I keep getting invitations from people that want me to go see their profile, but I don’t see the point.
OK, so I went there to look someone up and the maze one must go through to find someone is beyond ridiculous. You pick a range of names where the person you are looking for may reside, then you get to pick another range and then another and another. They you finally find the person, but you have to register to go any further.
Am I missing something? Is there more there than a photo and a list of people’s favorite songs? Please tell me what is going on there and if it is really worth the bother.
While you’re at it, tell me what the hell Twitter does. This is suddenly a new lexicon. Does Twitter or Face Book do anything that a blog doesn’t already do?
posted by The Guy Who Writes This at 4:00 AM
15 Comments:
I shunned both those things for a long time too. Twitter is more like "quickie" updates, and I still realize it's stupid.
Facebook wouldn't have hooked me at all until my daughter introduced me to two applications that I'm having a blast with: MyFarm and YoVille.
What can I say? It's my addictive personality.
I guess you're the Old Codger and I'm the Old Broad of the blogsphere, Guy. Neither one of these have appealed to me, either. I did try to figure out FaceBook once a while back, too, and gave up after I'd barely made a dent in the maze. I keep in contact with only one old school friend from the past and that's enough for me. Who cares what Joe Blow from Cocomo is up to after 36 years, ya know?! Maybe if I had more time.
I was on FB right before I popped over here. I've been on it (constantly?) for about five years (pretty much as soon as it appeared). As a tool, it has helped me stay in contact with friends from high school. As a fun site, it allows me to challenge my friends to games of WordTwist and The Dot Game. We can share pictures, leave notes, and inform our friends of the wonderful (or bad) things in our lives.
I'm not saying it's all great... I've purged my friend list a few times to keep only my friends on there (not just people I've met, sorry, those aren't friends). I also have my profile locked down so only my friends know I'm there. Unless I say so, you can't see my pictures, my info (nothing unsafe there anyway), or my favorite TV shows.
As for Twitter, well, I don't know much. I'm still trying to figure out what I want my status message to say today on Facebook! (hehe)
Perhaps it's the nature of the work I do, but I don't find the facebook UI at all a maze. I searched for people by name, or by name and HS, and voila... dozens of old friends. Also, there are some fun little game applications that keep it interesting.
The reason I would not transition from my blog to it is there are just things I don't want to put on FB. I like my blog for its interactivity and the established audience I have. FB is more about reconnecting... they have some overlap in terms of technology, yes. Like many other forms of tech in the world, there are multiple ways to accomplish things. Sometimes features in one are better than the other, but we use both to achieve a better blend of data.
Now as for twitter... I have zero interest. Do. Not. Get. It.
I have no desire to put out the amount of personal detail that places like MySpace and FaceBook require. I'm not a horribly private person, but it just makes me uncomfortable to read some of the stuff people have put up on their sites. Stuff they NEVER would have told or shown in pistures to hundreds of friends.
A freind of mine is in HR and teaches some classes at a local community college. She tells every student that if they want a really good well paying job they need to TAKE DOWN 95% of what's on their websites. She looks on the web for every applicant they hire from a lowly warehouse worker to a CEO. A lot of people don't get hired for what she finds.
People do put too much on there at times, but you have total control- FB etc do not 'require' you to put your full birth date, current employer, etc.
It's like anything else- people need use a little common sense and stop thinking that the internet is so large people won't see something.
My motto is when in doubt, don't post it.
Twitter - pain in the ass - still haven't figured out if anyone is reading or not. Don't care either.
Facebook - I'm finding is a place where my smarter dates can't find me, unlike my blog.
i just recently signed up at fb. like you, i had people sending me invitations to join until i finally did. if you have a good network of people you know, it's fun. i'm enjoying it because a lot of friends i have live way far away and it's easy to talk to them via fb and it also lets others (friends) join in on the conversation.
all in all, i'm glad i'm on there. i would be real careful though about putting any information that identity thieves could use. i'm surprised how many people list addresses, birthdates, etc.
my advice is to sign up and see if you like it. i'll send you an invite.
I think I'm like misskris on this one guy...I feel old looking at those facebook sites, my children wanted them and got them on the condition that I'm on their list...I can go there anytime....gheesh what a mess it looked to me....as to twitter...it didn't interest me either....
old fogey loopy here
I guess you can count me among the old fogeys too. Don't have time for all these consarned newfangled geegaws. Heck, I just barely figured out how to blog a few months ago and I only got this new computer because I was tired of shoveling coal into the back of the old one. That sucker really slowed down when I lost steam, lemme tell ya.
The missus & #2 daughter use FB a lot to keep in touch. Twitter is still a mystery to me though.
I can't be bothered with either of 'em.
My son uses Facebook - he is in college. I think its probably a great thing for kids his age.
If someone wants to find me - I am listed in the phone book and have been in the same house over 20 years. Hell, my mother still lives in the town I grew up in with the same phone number. I am not that hard to find.
OK, I am still unconvinced to get a face book account, though I've had three invitations last week. I've thought it over and if someone really wants to find me they can with a Google search, and besides, maybe I don't want to be easily found. Maybe there's good reasons I lost contact with people in the first place.
I love facebook. Almost as much as bacon. Yeah, that much....
sign me up for the the early codger club, because beyond facebook and the blog, i'm really not that electronically inclined. the "new" facebook is more time-consuming (in a bad way) than the old, and while i have a twitter account, i can't tell you for the life of me what useful purpose it serves.
tweet?
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