Facebook Frustrations

Well, I am glad I am not a programmer, because after reading Seth Call's posting on the issues with developing for Facebook, I would certainly look somewhere else for things that needed developing.

Burried down in the comments is this statement: The FB API is documented. Only because there's no JS sample code for you lamers doesn't mean it sucks. Get skill.

What I find funny about it is that one, it is the only comment that says that the API is documented and two, a number of good coders disagree.

So what really is the issue? I would have to agree with Seth. Facebook does not care and as pointed out in another comment, it is nothing but an information harvesting scheme. That seems to hit the nail on the head.

More On Social Networking

Over the last few days on an email thread for Public Information Officers for Amateur Radio clubs, we were talking about implementing social media (Facebook, Twitter etc.) into our bag of tricks for getting the word out.

As Bill Pasternack pointed out:

The figures for growth in Twitter will amaze you: From Jan 08 to Jan 09, Worldpress Research reported Twitters membership grew by 1,227% and Facebook by 256%. The numbers for Jan 2009 to Jan 2010 are expected to be over 5 times or more greater. Or, if you want to put it in raw numbers, 5 in every 8 humans world wide are likely on Twitter and 2 in every humans world wide on Facebook by 2015.

Now those are pretty impressive numbers, taken as they are. But if you peel back a little, you find a different story. For example, the increase in numbers do not take into account multiple squatter accounts, set up by companies for marketing purposes (or those hoping for a quick buck), nor do they differentiate multiple personal identities (heck, I have three accounts). It also does not show how many people have abandoned Twitter.

Huffington Post reports:

A new study, released April 2010, examines Twitter usage in the United States, finding that although most Americans are aware of Twitter, few are using it.

To me, social media is more like AOL than it is like the Internet. Yes, there are a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon, but after a while, you have to wonder what is keeping them there. For example, here is a sampling of tweets from about 7 AM this morning from the main timeline:

• mrmarkmillar Please don't force Nolan to direct Batman in 3d, Warner Bros. REAL LIFE is 3D. It's not a novelty anymore.
• IAmSteveHarvey Good Morning everybody. Put your trust and hope into a relationship that is fail proof... Put it in God.
• Carine_Roitfeld Trying and Doing are two different things. When you try, you hope. When you do, you succeed.
• DaveGorman My must watch TV for tonight. John Sweeney. Panorama. The Truth About Scientology. http://bbc.in/dbXbz3 2 hours ago
• BestFilmQuotes "Sometimes, fantasies are better than reality." -A Cinderella Story (2004) *rptd
• USGS Seeing many tweets on quake prediction. Folks, let's set the record straight...no one can predict quakes...no one http://go.usa.gov/xA9
• starnewslive Delhi: labourers steal brass fittings worth 18 lakhs from water hydrants in CWG village
• mrchrisaddison Kim Jong-Il's been unanimously re-elected. Bit of an upset, that. My money was on his brother, David Jong-Il

Simply thrilling stuff right? Actually, the article from the USGS has a bit of interest to me, but if I had not read it, I would not be losing any sleep.

And as I have said about Facebook a number of times, I do not see the point. When I abandoned Facebook, my timeline was more a wash of game updates than useful information from my friends. Maybe I need more exciting friends but most only updated their status daily at best and the updates were interesting one time out of ten, if that.

So why is social media such a big deal? Why is it attracting so many people? Why is it so popular that people will buy credits to play games? And by people, I do not mean the usual suspects, but people that would otherwise have nothing to do with the computer.

If I could answer that question, then perhaps I could understand how to better use the technology, but I do not understand, and I guess, until I do, I will be on the outside looking in. But not very hard. After all, I did not understand AOL either, and it never really seemed to be that much of a negative either.

Social Gaming Takes Another Step

Target will be the first retailer to sell Facebook Credits in its stores come Sunday. The Facebook Credits gift cards will be available in $15, $25 and $50 denominations at all 1,750 Target locations and at Target.com. (Mashable)

When I read this yesterday, my first question was why? The answer I received was "what do you mean, why? huge revenue potential. huge. holiday gift cards are big business. social gaming is big business." This caused me to pause a moment. And that moment lasted more than a moment.

Maybe it is because I come from a different generation. I grew up playing sports, on teams and as an individual, against other people, in real time on a field of grass, outside under a blue sky. Hey, we used to sweat on each other sometimes. Or, as a competitive swimmer, I would compete against them in a pool. To borrow a phrase, we could see the whites of their eyes. I grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons. Laugh all you want about geeks in a basement, but these geeks were socializing, using their brains. Sure it was not always as physical as when we were banging heads on the football field, but we were socializing, face-to-face. Even today, with all of the various on-line poker games that are available to me, I would much rather sit down at a table of complete strangers and play a few hands than stare for hours (OK, minutes) at a video screen.

I have a number of friends. Some I only know through the Internet and I have been on it a long time. And I can assure you that knowing someone on-line leaves a lot to be desired. You really do not know them. You do not know what they sound like, how they react, who they are. I have been fortunate enough to meet a number of them face-to-face and get to really know them better. I wish I had the opportunity to do that will all of my on-line friends, but because of cost, distance or other reasons, I know that I will not get to meet them all.

Almost a year ago, I wrote about Social Media, or more correctly, my increasing disillusionment with it, especially Facebook. I am more convinced than ever that closing my Facebook account was exactly the right thing to do. Target's decision to sell credit gift cards convinces me even more. I played Farmville, for all of about 10 minutes and all it did was convince me that I really should reinstall SimCity on my system.

I see two dangers with these cards. The first is people converting money into...I do not even know what to call it other than air (flushing it down the drain would be what our parents would say) without even the tangible benefit of something to show for it, just so they can purchase a virtual sledgehammer, or pig, or what have you. In Las Vegas, they convert your money into tokens (chips) because of the physiological impact losing real dollars at the tables tends to reduce the actually betting. But at the end of the day, if you win, you have the option of reconverting these tokens into dollars and taking your winnings home with you. Does Facebook intend to do the same thing?

The second thing that concerns me is that there are a number of people, so addicted to these games, that they will go out and spend the money on these gift cards. And more money. And more money. And in the end you have accomplished what? You have what to show for it?

In Las Vegas (and other places) it is called gambling and there are very tight rules and regulations, imposed by the State and Federal Government on what you can and cannot do. What do we call these social games? I mean other than a money making engine for Facebook. If this does not concern you, it should. And like me, you should be asking more than just why?

Social Media, take two - Facebook has issues

IDG News Service - Facebook confirmed Monday what some users have been noticing for the past few days: Its site is having problems. (Computerworld)

I thought this made an ironic follow up to my post on September 9, 2009. You will note that this article is dated the 21st of September and that Facebook indicates they have only began experiencing the issues that caused me to throw in the towel "this morning" (the 21st.).

Clearly, this makes me wonder if the owners of Facebook are doing any site monitoring at all. The problems I have experience are identical to those that they claim are being experienced, yet have impacted me, in an escalating fashion for more than three months.

Facebook may have some "fun and important challenges" and I wish them all the best. If they want to start with basic performance before added more gee whiz factors, I would suggest that would be their best course of action.

Social Media, take one.

For me, the great social media experiment is pretty much done. Be it MySpace, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook, I have decided that there is little point to them, and even less point in continuing to use them.

My latest disillusionment is with Facebook. Ever since the denial of service attack, the holes in the service have become more glaring, knocking the already fading bloom off of the rose, and leaving the rather painful thorns, in the form of clunky interfaces. What is tragic is that these interfaces exist in much more mature forms elsewhere.

Maybe it is because I spend all day fighting with poorly coded apps that I have lost patience with ajax and database errors wiping out my content.

Maybe it is because I already have a number of perfectly good email and IM interfaces and Facebook is yet one more place I have to check in an already busy day because their email and IM interfaces are closed - and pretty rickety.

Maybe it is because of the poor third party apps that tend to go stale long before I have finished using the send more, get more hook because I have spent more time resetting the security. And that is on those apps I don't abandon outright because they look like they were coded with a random text generator.

Maybe it is because, like every tool before it back to the beginning, I am getting more junk - call it spam, call it marketing - than I am getting useful updates from friends, and even some of my friends have begun direct marketing things at me...or should I say ex-friends.

Maybe it is the generally siloed nature of the data sink that seems to consume increasingly more time to sort through that vexes me.

In reality, it is, at any one time, a combination of all of these things. I have watched the general decline in posts from my circle of friends, even those I consider good friends and watched their updates move back towards more traditional methods, like email, IM, on-line photo sites and just not posting. This is not a knock against my friends, rather, I think it highlights that I am not the only one who has come to this conclusion.

So I am going to return to the old ways. I will leave my profile up, but if you really want me to know what is going on, drop me a note. My email address is there and I am on all the major IM channels.

In the meantime, I have mission-critical apps to deal with.