My
name is Noah, I am interested in The Internet Culture and Personal Information
Management. As part of this Blog, I will regard a variety of subjects, which
interest me. As life itself, I believe that there are no black and white and
according to this, apart of my thoughts (they probably interest only me J) I'll try
to rely on facts and quotes from sources, which are bigger than me… (As
well as my holy scriptures – Wikipedia J).
Recently,
I have read a post about Facebook by dana boyd, (I have to mention that dana
boyd's blog is one of the most interesting on the net, but this is an issue for
another post). Anyway, dana's post mentioned another post, which was published
by Techcrunch, in it Facebook claimed that Facebook is a "Social
Utility" as opposed to "Social Network" and its goal is to
reflect the real-world's contact of the user and not produce new friends:
"Please
note that Facebook accounts are meant for authentic usage only. This means that
we expect accounts to reflect mainly "real-world" contacts (i.e. your
family, schoolmates, co-workers, etc.), rather than mainly
"internet-only" contacts. As stated on our home page, Facebook is a
social utility that connects you with the people around you, not a "social
networking site". It is meant to help reinforce pre-existing social
connections, not build large groups of new ones. If this is in direct contrast
to what you expect as legitimate Facebook usage, I apologize for any confusion.
This is simply the intention behind the site."
This
Facebook reaction is kind of strange. If indeed it was important to Facebook the
network virtualization of the real-world life, why does Facebook support convenient
communication tools with other users? Within these communication tools lay:
· Facebook groups,
which serve as communication forums about variety of issues, allowing
introduction between users and their peers.
· Sending message to
any user, without being its friend
· Various friend
finders, allowing a user to find other networks friends, email friends, etc.
· And of course the
big bang – The mess which all started from – Facebook applications…
As
a response to clarification request from Techcrunch, the following answer was
received:
"To
simplify this a bit, users on Facebook cannot have more than one account and
creating another account for the purpose of playing this game violates pour
Terms of Use. We recognize and appreciate that each person uses Facebook based
on their own interests and preferences and are happy to see people meeting new
friends on Facebook. To ensure users are comfortable on the site and not
burdened by unsolicited contact, we encourage users to add people that reflect
their real-world connections and create trusted networks"
To
summarize, I would say – Think before you speak… Don't you think
so?
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