Don’t be a Facebook whore
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Just in case you ever sue me, you should know that I have every e-mail I have ever sent or received since 1992. That’s crazy from a legal standpoint, I know, but I can’t help myself. I’m obsessive-compulsive that way. But having a clear view of 16+ years of mail amounting to more than four gigabytes of mainly ascii text gives me a sobering sense of how poorly e-mail does the job lately compared to its glory days of, say, 1999.
More than ninety percent of my mail today by volume is spam. Back in 1999 spam was about 15 percent of my mail. Of course I am in large part to blame for this because I sign up for services and tell them, yes, I would like to receive news and offers by e-mail. I do this because I think it is my job to keep a finger on the pulse of the Internet and if you don’t get spam there isn’t much of a pulse. But it sure gets in the way of staying in touch with friends. And as you can imagine, I have a lot of friends.
As e-mail fails, then, we jump to instant messaging and social networks to take up the slack. Instant-messaging, which remains delightfully spam-free, is also like allowing casual acquaintances easy access to your IV drip: they can drop the worst stuff on you with no notice and no way of avoiding it. At least with e-mail you can decide when to check it or not, but IM is relentlessly in your face.
Well then there are the social networks, right? I tried to avoid these for years. I mean YEARS. People would want me to sign onto one or another so we could “keep our address books synchronized.” Why would I want that? But eventually some of my best friends began to take personally my resistance to being part of their automated lives, so I eventually signed-on to Plaxo, LinkedIn, and FaceBook. I might have a MySpace page, too, I’m not sure, but I certainly don’t visit there.
I barely visit Plaxo, but I am pretty consistently on Facebook and at least once a week get to LinkedIn. But that’s it. As far as I am concerned, if you want me to join Bebo or WhereAreYouNow or some other social networking startup, well forget it. Plaxo, LinkedIn, and Facebook do a perfectly adequate job of defining my culture, thanks. I can’t imagine needing another, especially ones that are so gimmicky. Why the hell, for example, would I want to rate my friends or have them rate me? That’s simply stupid.
There’s my money quote for FriendChat, PeopleRadar, RateMyEverything and a hundred other similar sites: “Rate my friends? That’s stupid” – Bob Cringely.
Keeping up with Plaxo, LinkedIn, and Facebook is bad enough, but I now sense that really ugly things are happening to those platforms making them less and less useful to me. It’s the rise of the social networking application.
You know what I am talking about, those applications that are built by third-party developers to take advantage of the social network ecosystem the companies are so proud to create but we all come to hate over time.
My friend Ira is a Facebook whore. He signs-up for every cause, group, or application sent to him by, well, anybody. Then what’s even worse is he expects me to sign-up too so he can send me whatever crap is the specialty of that subgroup.
I love you, Ira, but I just can’t do as you ask.
This is nothing more than social networking spam, folks, and it is sucking the value out of social networks just like mail spam sucked the value out of e-mail. And to those venture capitalists who see all these applications and rejoice because of the added network volume, which they think translates into higher valuations, understand that this very volume will eventually KILL every one of these companies, making your investment in them worthless.
If you think Facebook is immune to this effect because of its success, you are wrong. It’s very success makes Facebook even more likely to fail as a result. It won’t happen right away but it will happen when we’ll all jump overnight to some other platform whose only advantage over Facebook is that it lacks such sludge.
So if you are in touch with me for any reason please understand that while I will become your friend or contact on these services I will NEVER join a group, NEVER join a cause, NEVER accept an invitation (even if I actually end-up attending the event), NEVER become a fan, and NEVER, NEVER, NEVER install third-party applications.
And you shouldn’t, either.
I just saw this post on Hacker News. Yup, Facebook spam does indeed suck. The only app I signed up for was the Visa Business Network app, and that’s because they paid me $100 in Facebook ad credit to do it (google it).
Hi Bob, I thought this post belonged more to last year than this year.
My feeling is that this facebook-app craze is for the most part behind us.
Also, there’s a mistake in your next-to-last paragraph (It’s instead of Its)
>It’s very success makes Facebook even more likely to fail as a result.
I don’t know if I would call it spam – it is annoying for me – but there are people who treat it as entertainment. I have the feeling that there are enough of those people to make this third party apps a good business (just look at: http://thumblounge.com/iphone-apps-chart/iphone-apps/ – people pay real money for iFart – what does that mean about humanity?). Yes it is worthless for me, but it’s not spam – and unfortunately it will not self-destroy.
My only hope is that it is so counter-productive that those who endulge themselves in the sheep-throwing apps will be left behind and those interested in discussions will conquer some new spaces.
hey Bob, that long long list of NEVER should bring one question: why did you subscribe those social networks? The spirit is being social (ie sharing experiences and interests), if you don’t want to… Just go back to emails
I think that all these networks are doomed to fail eventually because they are essentially fads that appeal to the masses. 18 months ago the less tech savvy public was all over Myspace, now the same people won’t shut up about facebook. How long will it be before they find something new and move along?
Exactly!
If I join something, I never send join requests to people on my friends list. In return, I ignore requests from others.
Never never never never never ever will I join The Face-Borg.
MySpace satisfies all my social networking needs … and I joined that by accident several years ago, without knowing quite what the hell it was … I don’t need a million “friends” like many MySpace members, 50-60 is about as much as I can manage.
BTW, IM is so not spam free. Spam on IM is called spim. I stopped using JUNO’s AIM based service, my once beloved ICQ, and slacked off even using my Yahoo IM because of all XXX-rated spim. I haven’t used GoogleTalk yet, I imagine it has spim filters.
Hi Bob,
How can I subscribe to your podcast – i.e. where’s the RSS feed for the audio version – featuring your “sexy, sexy voice”(TM).
Good luck with these new ventures – i followed you here from pbs and am looking forward to the nerdtv rebirth.
On the topic of social networks…:
I have resisted facebook (and the others) until now.. but consensus amonghst my crowd appears to be they have swapped principals and freedom and a working set of solutions (email, “the web”, instant messaging) and prefer to give business to facebook’s walled-garden.
Your comments and approach may well be the acceptable/sensible compromise – thanks for the steer
Steve.
The link to the RSS feed for audio is here:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/cringelymp3
As soon as iTunes approves the new podcast, the links will show on the main nav of the site.
Benjamin,
Thanks for taking the time to point to this
Is that URL listed somewhere on the site (was I being dumb!)?
I have fired up my mighty podcast download engine (bashpodder – http://lincgeek.org/bashpodder/ – it rocks!) and have successfully caught a couple of Cringely podcasts and that they are valid and play OK
however they have filenames with the dates but no ID for Bob.X (e.g. 12262008.mp3 & 12292008.mp3) and no meta-data – can anyone fix this for future?
Cheers, Steve
I’ll see if Bob can add the meta data to the file, but right now the files do not have meta-data attached. Interesting that your client won’t pull the meta data from the XML file though.
The URL is somewhat available. When using Firefox, if you click on the ‘RSS’ icon you’ll see the Podcast feed. It’s not quite ready for deployment yet, but you can grab on to it if you like. Otherwise, no, it is hidden right now by design.
Hi Again & thanks for the updates.
Re: I’ll see if Bob can add the meta data to the file
Good – I see no reason to omit meta data – it’s not like it’s difficult or a major time consuming extra overhead in the creation of a blog and podcast – especially a for a nerd like Bob.X
Re: Interesting that your client won’t pull the meta data from the XML file though
Don’t understand this comment… I’m just grabbing the mp3 file for later loading on an mp3 player – meta data should be in the id3 tags of the mp3 file
Re: URL hidden right now by design.
Understood – thanks for letting it out now anyhow I’ll keep grabbing the audio files as they get published.
Thanks again and best wishes for the new year and the new Cringely ventures
Steve.
I only receive direct messages and Wall posts via email from Facebook friends. Invitations to groups and for applications are contained within the Facebook site, and I look over them every few weeks. You should probably do the same.
For a guy that is trying to keep up with what is going on on the Web, this is a pretty backwards post. Social networking is important, and you should understand it enough to write about it and participate. Honestly, put this post back in the early eighties and it would sound like an old fogey saying he “don’t need no damn email or computers to run his business.”
Bob, I have been reading your column since the Infoworld days, and I have followed you through the PBS column, and now on to your personal blog. I have to tell you that I still enjoy most of your writing, but I have noticed it becoming less and less relevant in the past couple of years.
You understood Microsoft, IBM, and the old guard more than anybody, but, lately, your posts about IBM and IT, etc. are becoming yesterday’s news. Please don’t take this post as a troll, but I have been making this observation about your writing, and this post finally moved me to make a comment. Take it as you wish.
Sure, there is a bunch of crap on SSN’s, but there are some good apps as well. Saying you will NEVER use an app is just setting your self up for a retraction. In addition, you should be taking a leading position on the use of network profiles and identities for logging in to other sites, etc. There is a lot of action here, and it is important stuff. We need smart people like you to weigh in, but before you can do that you need to have an open mind and try to figure out why literally hundreds of millions of people use these services. Please don’t put your head in a hole and become irrelevant.
Bob, it appears you and I are about the same age – OK, you seem a bit older, but I, like you, think much of this “because-you-can” communication technology is a solution looking for a problem. I now use Gmail for its great spam filter. IM never caught on with my crowd, and after joining Facebook in a search for an old friend, I quickly shut it down after reading the default settings and a few articles about the potential to have the system abuse your life (ID theft, exposure looping into forever…) so count me among the middle-aged, silly-tech-resistant group.
Of course, I love learning about, and using RELEVANT, PRODUCTIVE technologies. I just see much of what passes for productive in the online space as a waste of time and energy. In addition, I have a standard for friends, it involves being in the same physical space at some point early in the relationship to validate the bond of friendship. If we communicate over great distances after that, I totally appreciate the opportunity and the technology that makes that possible. But to have instant online “friends” that I have never vetted through the stranger-acquaintance-buddy chain, well that just seems… stupid!
Keep on writing. This is one part of online existence I find useful, and it’s great to see it continue.
I agree so wholeheartedly that I linked to this post using the ShareThis-Facebook trackback.
Hope it’s a cause my FaceFriends DON’T ignore.
I generally don’t use anything that I don’t find useful (clever, eh?) but this doesn’t mean that I won’t find a need for it in the future. I think I may still have a tool or two in my chests that I have never found a use for even though I’ve done everything from rebuilding engines to putting together Christmas toys over the last 40 or so years.
That is why I don’t use Facebook right now. I’ve corresponded with people all over the world, quite a few of whom I have met in person, that share a common interest in technical stuff and gather at various tech web sites to share ideas and argue points. Many of these sites are social networks in their own right, minus pretty pictures and gadgets.
If Facebook could implement one rule to control applications it should be forbidding the ‘and invite all my friends’ buttons. Make people invite friends conscientiously and 95% of the problem goes away. There’s Bill’s free advice to Facebook to save a billion dollars of valuation.
I ignore nearly all invites unless they appear to fill a real critical niche (there aren’t many). The iPhoto exporter for Facebook got installed, for instance. But I’m sure it pesters nobody, it simply helps me out. Only 99% of the apps are evil. >:D
Bob, always been a big fan but your audio version sounds like a bad film strip audio clip from when I was a kid.
By definition, ‘whores’ get paid – at least I thought so.
So unless Ira get’s paid, he’s a ‘tart’…
Many of my friends and co-workers signed up for a couple of social networks. I joined just to be polite. That was a year ago. Not one person has used them to communicate even one time since the initial sign up. That leads me to believe many people join these networks just to see what all the fuss is about… but never find enough value to continue using them. Basically, like a free trial that gets dumped.
You know it’s bad when there are social networking sites to manage all your other social networking sites, as there are now.
No need for Plaxo. LinkedIn suits well for business and Facebook for personal use and that’s it. There’s no time for anything else, or that time is not really worth it.
And yeah, no apps on any social site of any kind. Your friends like Ira are the same people who forward every bad joke they get in email…
As long as there are people longing to be juveniles, there will be applications aimed at juveniles to tarnish any ecosystem.
90% of the world never leave high school – they just leave adult supervision.
Ike said:
“90% of the world never leave high school – they just leave adult supervision.”
That is so true. Interoffice politics alone demonstrates that, and I have little desire to see it played out in social networking circles. I somehow got talked into joining Linkedin, but the more I see it the less I like it. The nature of my job is not something I want people to search for “contacts”, and I’m sure that somewhere along the line my employment contract forbids discussion about certain aspects of my work online. Look at it this way, if you’re an employer of, say, the State Department, do you think it would be a good idea to post what you do online? Would you really want to hire a lawyer who describes what cases he’s currently working on online?
Social networks might be great for a certain net subculture, but when employers and unsavories can find out intimate details about your life because you post them there, well, that’s just stupid.
Could you please change the name under which your RSS feeds appear? I subscribe to yours and to a couple from InfoWorld, including their “Robert X. Cringely.” I would like to be able to distinguish your feeds from theirs. Maybe “The Original Robert X. Cringely”? Or just “I, Cringely”, which I thought was perfectly adequate.
[...] I, Cringely » Blog Archive » Don’t be a Facebook whore – Cringely on technology – [...]
TBTLFIC: Too Big To Let Fail Insurance Corporation
We don’t have to insure banks, you know. Consumers, shrewdly judging the risk of the bank’s position and corporate obligations, can decide for themselves if a bank’s insurance policy is a good reason to use them. At the very least, we can simply require banks t carry private deposit insurance, and let that free market punish speculative banks with high premiums.
Or not. The free market has not been doing a good job judging risk lately.
So if the government can impose prudent behavior on banks in the form of insurance because it will have to clean up the mess, it can do so for business entities that are “Too Big To Let Fail”. Free markets are great if we are all immortal and no one starved. No one would buy insurance because insurance is never worth it in the long run. Eventually, things balance out and the money you would have spent on insurance is more the losses it covered. We buy insurance because we’re afraid that we’re the unlucky ones that die in the middle of a down-swing.
If the government is obligated to save a company because too many people would lose their jobs all at once, then the government can charge them a little premium for the risk. Companies have no more right to risk our economy than the Secretary of the Treasury has to put a few trillion on a roulette table. This is our society and we can damn well foresee problems and make contingency plans.
It is no more unfair for the largest companies to pay extra than it is for the richest people to pay more: they get the most benefit from all the things that taxes buy. Yes, all the things. Farm-workers in California and bus-drivers in Maine don’t directly benefit from a functional financial system, but they’re paying for it. Likewise, hedge-fund managers and trust-fund babies benefit from a cohesive society where (at least) their neighborhoods are safe and their food is not tainted. If the rest of the developed world did not offer such clear examples of the social and economic benefits of universal healthcare, then our immature and short-sighted choice would be pitiful instead of asinine.
Heh, I ‘disabled’ my facebook account about 2 weeks ago.. Not much of value, especially with snoopy folks at work these days :/
I agree, Bob. But the hardest thing with social networks, and even historically with IM is that you have to get all of your friends on to one platform. I’m still stuck using a multi-protocol chat client.
Good word, Bob. I agree.
I started joining the social sites when my friends did. Now, I join just to get my screen name before someone else does (in case the site becomes HUGE and I actually want an account). I got a MySpace account to keep an eye on my daughter. It worked until she blocked me (hah!) and I have not visited it for over three years.
Funny story about Twitter. I find it completely pointless to even consider keeping track of other people minute by minute. But, I got an account there so I could have my screen name.
When my son was being born, I wanted a way to share the experience with my family, co-workers, and friends. I could not (of course) have them in the delivery room with me, so I decided to use my long-dormant Twitter account and my Blackberry to update so everyone could keep up. They LOVED it!
I apparently had half of Intel, where I work, keeping up with the drama. It was a complicated delivery to say the least. At the end, they all had a great time talking about it, and I had that many fewer people to call for the announcement.
A friend of mine said “that may very well have been the most appropriate use of Twitter I have ever seen.” I tend to agree.
That was 4 months ago. I haven’t been back to twitter.com once, and I have no plans to visit again.
————W
> “Instant-messaging, which remains delightfully spam-free, is also like allowing casual acquaintances easy access to your IV drip: they can drop the worst stuff on you with no notice and no way of avoiding it.”
How so? You mean by pinging you with pictures and links etc.? Of course you can avoid it, just ask the friend to stop.
Social network applications are not spam. Spam gets sent in exactly the same way as regular email and in fact many times tries to pass itself off as regular email. It can also be sent to you from anyone. That’s why we hate it.
Facebook applications, on the other hand, are:
1. Only sent to you by people you added to your network. This means you personally know (to a lesser or greater degree) every person who sends you an app link and can ask them to stop if it bothers you.
2. Are opt-in – you have to join in to the application to continue having it there on your front page, etc.
So basically I pretty much disagree with your entire post. Sorry
@Steve Dorsey, that’s a wonderful story about Twitter and I agree, that does sound like one of the most appropriate uses of Twitter I have ever heard of
Is Bob comment-whoring, perhaps?
OK, I’ll bite. Smart people should try very hard to avoid using the word NEVER.
Saying you will NEVER join a FB group is akin to saying you will NEVER find a show on Fox funny or entertaining – Ira and Bob are extremes, the rest of the Universe is somewhere in between.
The key word is …..May….. Bob “may” never join a FB group.
Then again he would probably “Cringe” at the thought.
My experience is slightly different. I’ve joined a few FB groups and fewer causes. I’ll become a fan of anybody or anything I like. If any of the above ever start spamming me, I’ll drop ‘em quick.
We completely agree on third-party applications, however. Not a chance. My stack of ignored requests is large, because I won’t install the applications needed to accept them. Oh well.
[...] Don’t be a Facebook whore – Bob Cringely gets vocal on his opposition to social network applicaitons [...]
[...] really couldn’t have said it better myself – check out Robert Cringely’s full article. What’s going on now with social networking sites/applications is similar to what happened [...]
Just stopped by, nice blog!
Bob,
I have but one group for you to join. Entitled “I Don’t Join Any Groups. Don’t Bother Sending Requests.”
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=126858030006
I’ve been getting annoyed with the junk group join crap for a while. Do you think anyone will get the point?
Thanks,
Dex
I’m very surprised to read you are on Facebook as much as once a week. After reading your columns for years and trading emails now and again, you never struck me as the social networking type. At least not the ‘electronic social’ type who makes new contacts daily (and loses just as many). You seem much more the social in the real world and use the net just to communicate quickly.I too get annoyed with all the “100,000 Facebookers against giant feet” and other annoying invites. What Facebook needs is a way to refuse all invites rather then have to select ‘block app’ each time someone writes a new ’send this crap to all my friends’ tool. As for LinkedIn, you refused my request to associate with me. And oddly, that is the only place I use my real name. I knew I should have just used ‘Danger.’
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