The Era of Facebook Is an Anomaly

An anonymous reader writes "Speaking to The Verge, author and Microsoft Researcher Danah Boyd put words to a feeling I've had about Facebook and other social networking sites for a while, now: 'The era of Facebook is an anomaly.' She continues, 'The idea of everybody going to one site is just weird. Give me one other part of history where everybody shows up to the same social space. Fragmentation is a more natural state of being. Is your social dynamic interest-driven or is it friendship-driven? Are you going there because there's this place where other folks are really into anime, or is this the place you're going because it's where your pals from school are hanging out? That first [question] is a driving function.' Personally, I hope this idea continues to propagate — it's always seemed odd that our social network identities are locked into certain websites. Imagine being a Comcast customer and being unable to email somebody using Time Warner, or a T-Mobile subscriber who can't call somebody who's on Verizon. Why do we allow this with our social networks?"

Comments

Laughable

[Anonymous Coward]

"None ever used this thing that wasn't available before, therefore (loads of rationalizations)"

Re:Laughable

[TWX]

It's probably more comparable to the telephone's introduction and subsequent ubiquity than it is to existing Internet services. And like the phone system and its eventual finding-of-monopoly and breakup, plus the introduction of new technology (cell phones) that fragmented it, I expect that some day Facebook will be ruled a monopoly and either broken up or forced to turn itself, to an extent, into a backend that allows other services to integrate into it seamlessly, like how MCI and later cell phone companies integrate into the legacy of Ma Bell.

Re:Laughable

[dingen]

The basic premise, that it is an anomaly for us to come together into a common social space, is so ridiculous that I have to wonder what her agenda is for making such a blatantly false claim.

People came together from their community to the marketplace to socialize. People came together at church every single Sunday.

You don't get it. The point is that the entire world didn't come together at the same marketplace, or the same church building, or live in the same city for that matter. It's unnatural for humans to all be in the same spot to socialize, we rather split up in groups of manageable size. That's the premise of the author. Now whether that's true or false remains to be seen, but at least understand the point the article is trying to make.

Re:Laughable

[denzacar]

Also, whoever wrote that does not realize that Facebook is not a site or social space but a service.

So that argument could just as well be used against a telephone, postal service, roads... with equal relevance and correctness.

Give me one other part of history where everybody

[bigdavex]

Phone system?

Re:Give me one other part of history where everybo

[MightyYar]

No, the phone system is a network of compatible and standardized endpoints. No one really cares how they are connected, just like no one would care if Facebook didn't use the internet. I think the phone system is a pretty good example.

Simplicity

[nurb432]

Right or wrong, the reason a large site like Facebook stays large as most people dont want to have to go different places to do what amounts to the same thing.

Would you rather go to 10 friends house each week for 30 minutes each, or everyone hang out at one for the afternoon? Most people would not choose all the running around.

Misunderstanding Facebook

[cstacy]

Facebook is not a place that everyone goes to. It is merely a hosting platform where people create zillions (of partially overlapping) "places" that they go to. Those millions of people are not on your Friends list. Facebook is millions of "places", not one. (However, George Takei's page is indeed the one single place in the world where everyone goes. But just for his stuff; nobody reads the comments.) As for Facebook "bombarding your news feed with useless information 24x7", ummm, that doesn't happen to me. Get a life?

Re:Talking outta ass

[rev0lt]

FB will be "lame" sooner or later. Give it 2-5 years and everyone will be jumping on that next best thing.

I'd generally agree with this, but I was the guy saying that 5 years ago. Everything has a peak, but it seems to be too soon to tell.

Imagine a world

[markdavis]

>"author and Microsoft Researcher Danah Boyd [...] Imagine being a Comcast customer and being unable to email somebody using Time Warner, or a T-Mobile subscriber who can't call somebody who's on Verizon. Why do we allow this with our social networks?"

That's a good question, Ms. "Microsoft researcher". Perhaps you can imagine a world where people can exchange documents freely and accurately without proprietary software like MS-Word. Or a world where consumers can put any OS they want on any computer without MS working with vendors to try and block them at the BIOS level. Or imagine people sharing calendar events easily without using MS's Exchange/Outlook formats. MS tried to hijack the web with IE (and did so successfully for years), and lied about their competitors to prevent diversity, locked out vendors from including Linux or other FOSS on machines, corrupted exported filters to make sure files to/from competitors would be partially broken. And the list goes on and on. Microsoft has been responsible for more lock-in and anti-compatibility than any other tech company, so perhaps I find it ironic that someone from Microsoft would ask us to imagine any kind of world of incompatibility.

network effect iff vendor lockin

[markhahn]

lockin/networkeffect is so much easier a business model than competing based on excellence.

it's an interesting question to ponder: at what level of clue do customers begin to care? does the mass market ever reach that level? implicitly, sure - a service won't succeed which can't interoperate at least well enough. but how many customers really understand the concept of protocol or API - understand it well enough to realize that it permits vendor-independent services?

Re:Talking outta ass

[Opportunist]

Sure they want to have one. To play some FB game, to put some pics on it, but certainly not to socialize with their friends. Well, at least not once puberty sets in, they notice that their parents (or their parents' friends) have FB accounts and they can't really avoid "friending" them.

Then they'll be looking for some other medium to communicate with their peers where their parents are not going to be able to snoop.