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The Facebook Obsession
rabidmuskrat writes "Are we too obsessed with Facebook? With 500 million users and a CNBC story about it, the answer would seem to be yes. PostRandomonium notes the media's obsession with Facebook, and how it impacts their news coverage — in particular, that of CNN. One out of every 13 Earthlings and three out of four Americans is on Facebook, and one out of 26 signs into Facebook on a daily basis."
When you use the word "obsessed," I was expecting a story about people losing sleep and productivity over Facebook. Or statistics showing the amount of time spent by people using Facebook. Instead, we get an article from CNN that compares Facebook to having a bellybutton, a story from CNBC that doesn't load, and some guy's personal blog. Where is the story?
The World is Yours.
People is ossessed by FB because media tell them that everyone else is.
You need an e-mail address to get a Facebook account, but not everyone who has an e-mail address uses Facebook. So the real question should be, Are we obsessed with E-mail?
So how many people check email on a daily basis? And why isn't that front page news?
There was a time when that was front page news, yes. I remember getting email for the first time ('89, so it had already been going for what - 20 years?) and being astounded. Then discovered newsgroups, saw the web get built etc..
All this stuff was news, but it's happened. The Facebook thing is new, so it's news today.
Cheers,
Ian
I wouldn't be so bold as to say Facebook hasn't grown like wildfire, or that huge numbers of the population aren't using it, but 3/4 of Americans on Facebook? Seems like there are large portions of the population who that's simply not possible for, due to age, economic status, work constraints, etc. I wouldn't be surprised if there are 2 fake Facebook accounts for every real one.
No sig for you. YOU GET NO SIG!
...he said, socializing on a web 2.0 style ajax site
you're a giant hypocrite
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Wow, I really feel sorry for her... it's terrible that she doesn't have a phone or a skype account or an email account or a mailbox that you could use to "be there" for her!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I doubt very much the 500 million are unique at all.
Of course not. Facebook is going to hit the public stock market and this number is just part of the hype to increase the value. The number of accounts is a meaningless figure anyway -- you can bet that the vast majority of accounts are completely unused. In violation of European privacy laws you cannot even delete your FB account, so they've probably included my own account I've canceled long ago in this number, too.
In the long run FB will likely suffer the same fate as AOL, because they don't have anything valuable to offer. They just happened to offer the right waste of time at the right time. There will be a new waste of time for the masses by another Internet bubble company soon.