I’ll happily admit I’m outside Facebook’s core demographic. I know it’s being invaded by old farts now, so I’m in good company, but much like MySpace, it’s not a site I’m particularly drawn to.
I’ve joined some of its precursors, like FriendsReunited (the UK version of classmates.com) and signed
up for LinkedIn a couple of years ago.
My dalliance with FriendsReunited ended when they asked for money. Didn’t see the point. LinkedIn has proven to be occasionally useful, but again, I’m too cheap to pay for their premium services. If I were job hunting, I might feel different.
My wife is in the Facebook demographic and has been an active user for a while. Many of her former classmates are signed up too. I joined a few months ago just to (a) see what the noise was about; and (b) see if there was anything new that I should be aware of.
And there is.
Specifically, Facebook appears to have created two wholly new sources of annoyance in my life.
First of all, whenever someone sends a message to me, I get an email saying I got a message. So instead of one message to deal with, I now have two. Just what my personal inbox needs! I gather they are in the process of fixing this, but it’s still dumb.
The source of my second major gripe is far more nefarious in nature. Facebook’s primary mission, it seems, it to turn otherwise intelligent people into idiot spammers, or as I’m calling them, Facetards.
Whenever you decide to add an application (Fun Wall, SpamWall, TurdWall or whatever) Facebook defaults to automatically trying to message ALL your friends telling them about the new app you installed. If you’re on auto-pilot, you’ll probably miss that and become a Facetard.
Here’s how it usually works. Every day or so I’ll get a message that "Friend X has left a message on your TurdWall". Hmm, I don’t recall installing TurdWall. When I login, sure enough I’m prompted to install the TurdWall application. As part of the install, Facebook attempts to get me to spam all my friends and introduce them to the wonders of Turdwall.
I know it helps applications spread, but when the price of spreading is annoying your customers, I don’t see the model can last.
And now I feel even more like an old fart. Those damn young kids and their BetaMax VCRs. Bah, humbug.
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