They're too late to join the game. The problem is that MySpace already has everyone you know, so everyone joins it because everyone else already is there. Some random mumblings about really bad user design and spam won't make normal people switch over and all the bands will stay on MySpace since Facebook doesn't host music.
While I see what you're getting, it wasn't necessarily the case that "everyone" was on MySpace before Facebook, or Friendster before MySpace. I was a college freshmen when "The Facebook" was available for me and I hadn't even heard of MySpace at that point in time. No mention of it from my friends or anyone I knew. I knew about the live journal/xanga type blog things but those were obviously different in terms of feature set.
Maybe I was an aberration but it seemed like the barrier to entry was much lower than 5-6 years ago. Facebook has amassed a much larger following that will make them harder to knock down. Unlike with AOL, People have put significant time and effort into Facebook with their profiles, their interests, games and especially with their photos (uploading and tagging). The chat capability is also nice in that you can communicate with the person by just knowing their and not having to get their screenname or gmail ID.
However, the mighty can eventually fall. I've kept AOL Instant Messenger since the family AOL account was canceled in 2003 and used it for some years after. I've barely touched it recently though and I only know a small handful of people who use it as their primary IM correspondence. Your Facebook photo exporter would be a fantastic way to recoup that time spent uploading pictures, although there would need to be some mechanism to tie the photos to everyone who was tagged. We shall see what the next latest and greatest thing to come out is. I can only imagine it'd be a very slow weaning off of Facebook
I don't think there's a PC version planned but you should really check out Frets on Fire. It's a guitar hero clone for the computer. It says it is also compatible with the actually guitar controller although I can't verify this myself.
If you run a search for "frets on fire song pack" you'll also find links to torrents on some songs to download. They even have the Guitar 1 and 2 songs.
I've been playing with it the past couple days and it seems pretty good.
From what I can tell AIM is pretty much a US phenonemon. Most people that I've talked to from different countries, Canada, Poland, Spain, England, Panama etc etc stick with MSN Messenger. AIM just got their foothole in the US whenever people began to back off of AOL and wanted to still talk to all of their friends. And AOL unfortunately had a large market in America back in the day. I should atleast say this applies to the younger generations. Teens, college students, mid 20s. Of course sadly, not many people are willing to switch to another (better) client just because it would be a pain.
I don't work in IT at my school but I feel your pain. Every other day last year I would get a knock on my door with someone needing "help" with their computer. I then had to take the painful process of trying to open up IE and get Ad-Aware and spybot. I also shudder when I see 'Kazaa Media Desktop' on people's computers.
I honestly think that there should be a computer literacy course required. People are "dumb" only because they aren't educated about something that they use everyday. One core requirement that explains the basics of mal-ware, adaware, learning your way around windows, etc etc would drastically reduce the problems that plague the typical college campus. People are much more ignorant than they are stupid.
I think the use of broadband internet as well as multitasking and more importanly, lack of self control are the reasons for lack of learning. The fact that I can keep my AIM with the compulsive need to check it every five minutes, accompanied by winamp and firefox with infinite time wasting abilities, while I'm trying to write up my lab report is not a winning combination. If I was able to pull my ethernet cord out from my jack I can gurantee I would get much more work done and be able to focus on work. I'm sure many people can attest to this.
As useful as the internet is for homework and research, parents should really limit internet usage or atleast allocate time for their kids away from the computer (or the TV) to set aside to do schoolwork. I always did my best work in high school when my cable modem was acting screwy or I was forced off the computer.
Slashdot Mirror
While I see what you're getting, it wasn't necessarily the case that "everyone" was on MySpace before Facebook, or Friendster before MySpace.
I was a college freshmen when "The Facebook" was available for me and I hadn't even heard of MySpace at that point in time. No mention of it from my friends or anyone I knew. I knew about the live journal/xanga type blog things but those were obviously different in terms of feature set.
Maybe I was an aberration but it seemed like the barrier to entry was much lower than 5-6 years ago. Facebook has amassed a much larger following that will make them harder to knock down. Unlike with AOL, People have put significant time and effort into Facebook with their profiles, their interests, games and especially with their photos (uploading and tagging). The chat capability is also nice in that you can communicate with the person by just knowing their and not having to get their screenname or gmail ID.
However, the mighty can eventually fall. I've kept AOL Instant Messenger since the family AOL account was canceled in 2003 and used it for some years after. I've barely touched it recently though and I only know a small handful of people who use it as their primary IM correspondence. Your Facebook photo exporter would be a fantastic way to recoup that time spent uploading pictures, although there would need to be some mechanism to tie the photos to everyone who was tagged. We shall see what the next latest and greatest thing to come out is. I can only imagine it'd be a very slow weaning off of Facebook
I don't think there's a PC version planned but you should really check out Frets on Fire. It's a guitar hero clone for the computer. It says it is also compatible with the actually guitar controller although I can't verify this myself.
If you run a search for "frets on fire song pack" you'll also find links to torrents on some songs to download. They even have the Guitar 1 and 2 songs.
I've been playing with it the past couple days and it seems pretty good.
Wiki Link
You're right. I lose. :\
From what I can tell AIM is pretty much a US phenonemon. Most people that I've talked to from different countries, Canada, Poland, Spain, England, Panama etc etc stick with MSN Messenger. AIM just got their foothole in the US whenever people began to back off of AOL and wanted to still talk to all of their friends. And AOL unfortunately had a large market in America back in the day. I should atleast say this applies to the younger generations. Teens, college students, mid 20s. Of course sadly, not many people are willing to switch to another (better) client just because it would be a pain.
I don't work in IT at my school but I feel your pain. Every other day last year I would get a knock on my door with someone needing "help" with their computer. I then had to take the painful process of trying to open up IE and get Ad-Aware and spybot. I also shudder when I see 'Kazaa Media Desktop' on people's computers.
I honestly think that there should be a computer literacy course required. People are "dumb" only because they aren't educated about something that they use everyday. One core requirement that explains the basics of mal-ware, adaware, learning your way around windows, etc etc would drastically reduce the problems that plague the typical college campus. People are much more ignorant than they are stupid.
I think the use of broadband internet as well as multitasking and more importanly, lack of self control are the reasons for lack of learning. The fact that I can keep my AIM with the compulsive need to check it every five minutes, accompanied by winamp and firefox with infinite time wasting abilities, while I'm trying to write up my lab report is not a winning combination. If I was able to pull my ethernet cord out from my jack I can gurantee I would get much more work done and be able to focus on work. I'm sure many people can attest to this.
As useful as the internet is for homework and research, parents should really limit internet usage or atleast allocate time for their kids away from the computer (or the TV) to set aside to do schoolwork. I always did my best work in high school when my cable modem was acting screwy or I was forced off the computer.