![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
facebook, first impression
Sep. 6th, 2007 14:58the things i do for you people.
in the ongoing investigation of social networking and blogging sites in order torip off what's good examine what they do and don't do so well, i signed up for facebook.
first impression: this is SO NOT my place.
the whole real name thing, for one. there was a time when i wasn't averse to using my legal name online, but that was before the mainstream and with it crooks found the net, and before i realized the other joys of semi-anonymity (namely how much easier it is to talk about one's experiences without embarrassing or outing those near and dear). these days i am not leaving all my vital stats, or indeed anything that isn't absolutely necessary with any specific site, because that's just waiting for a hacker to come along and take it. facebook not only wants to store all my online means of contact (which is fine), it also would like my offline ones, my phone numbers, and indeed, my credit card. in your dreams, facebook. and of course you're not getting a photo of me either.
that's just worth a guffaw. the real annoyances came when i was trying to fill in my profile. i was trying to type "vrije universiteit amsterdam" into the "college" input, and got as far as "vri" when a loud javascript clamoured for my attention, because surely i had only misspelled "vanderbilt university". it kept insisting for roughly a minute and a half, flashing at me, all the while i was trying to type the actual name of my university, which it made near impossible. the same thing happened when i tried to type in my company. are most people on facebook such lousy spellers that they need this kind of help? i like completion in some apps (LJ's scrapbook tags have good completion), but not when it is this inept.
so i added 3 friends (thanks to actually remembering lorre's last name and location, she was easy to find, and then i just skimmed her friends list for more). somebody (i presume the person who has to confirm the friend request, cause it didn't ask me) filled in when and where we met (you guys have much better memories than i). now my social timeline tells me that i didn't speak to anyone in 1995! *snrk*. i can't be sure, but i think i might have. thank you for not denying me (it would be ok to do that, btw, if somebody felt my addition threw a black mark on their otherwise professional profile -- no ego in this; deny away). i think i am probably one of three people on the whole service who's not using zir actual name or photo.
stef's profile looks like the grand central station of profiles, so i am gonna spend some time studying all the apps present there.
in the ongoing investigation of social networking and blogging sites in order to
first impression: this is SO NOT my place.
the whole real name thing, for one. there was a time when i wasn't averse to using my legal name online, but that was before the mainstream and with it crooks found the net, and before i realized the other joys of semi-anonymity (namely how much easier it is to talk about one's experiences without embarrassing or outing those near and dear). these days i am not leaving all my vital stats, or indeed anything that isn't absolutely necessary with any specific site, because that's just waiting for a hacker to come along and take it. facebook not only wants to store all my online means of contact (which is fine), it also would like my offline ones, my phone numbers, and indeed, my credit card. in your dreams, facebook. and of course you're not getting a photo of me either.
that's just worth a guffaw. the real annoyances came when i was trying to fill in my profile. i was trying to type "vrije universiteit amsterdam" into the "college" input, and got as far as "vri" when a loud javascript clamoured for my attention, because surely i had only misspelled "vanderbilt university". it kept insisting for roughly a minute and a half, flashing at me, all the while i was trying to type the actual name of my university, which it made near impossible. the same thing happened when i tried to type in my company. are most people on facebook such lousy spellers that they need this kind of help? i like completion in some apps (LJ's scrapbook tags have good completion), but not when it is this inept.
so i added 3 friends (thanks to actually remembering lorre's last name and location, she was easy to find, and then i just skimmed her friends list for more). somebody (i presume the person who has to confirm the friend request, cause it didn't ask me) filled in when and where we met (you guys have much better memories than i). now my social timeline tells me that i didn't speak to anyone in 1995! *snrk*. i can't be sure, but i think i might have. thank you for not denying me (it would be ok to do that, btw, if somebody felt my addition threw a black mark on their otherwise professional profile -- no ego in this; deny away). i think i am probably one of three people on the whole service who's not using zir actual name or photo.
stef's profile looks like the grand central station of profiles, so i am gonna spend some time studying all the apps present there.