What is the Fluther opinion on Facebook?

I used it for a bit and deleted my account when my sister asked to be my friend. I only had one friend on it and he lives 10 minutes away.

I believe it, but didn’t know it.

I have never tried it, and I don’t intend to.

Then you clearly… clearly haven’t been browsing the internet as much as you think.

It’s very, very prevalent. Hell, I can’t watch a cute kitten video on YouTube without someone throwing out racial epithets.

As for Facebook in itself? It works. It does it’s job: keeps me in touch with friends and family and allows me to network with industry folk.

The above post has been edited for clarification of the intents and purposes of Mr. Grisaille

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I visit and/or use Facebook on a daily basis but my dedication to it doesn’t even come close to my love affair with Fluther. It’s SO much better here in Jelly Land. Facebook is okay but it’s not the end all, be all of Internet websites.

I would say this is more about cultural norms than race (e.g. one’s MySpace page can be “tricked out” but Facebook can’t- similar to car culture). That being said, demographics are demographics.

I’m a Facebook guy, mainly to find old friends although I started out playing poker.

@Grisaille Then you clearly… clearly haven’t been browsing the internet as much as you think.

I don’t think that I have been browsing it nearly as much as my wife thinks that I have, but I certainly do spend a good proportion of my time online – but not on social networking site. Fluther would the closet thing to a social site in any continued experience of mine.

Yes I see much racism, but have not noticed any distinct racial division before. My impression – limited in experience as it is – was that there were differences between Facebook and Myspace, but never that they were racial in any form. I had thought of it as more of a generational difference.

I have an account on Facebook and one on MySpace. I don’t use either very much, but I note that my friends on both seem to be of all colors and several languages. I do better with Facebook simply because all of the colors and patterns and noises that can be added to MySpace tend to confuse me.

@kevbo (e.g. one’s MySpace page can be “tricked out” but Facebook can’t—similar to car culture).

A “pimp my page response”. You could be right.

There is definitely some truth to that article.
I’d delete my myspace account if I could access the email I used to sign up.
My space is full of young, boisterous, (and more often than not) ghetto people. I can’t stand it. I stick with facebook.

I signed up for a MySpace account a couple years ago, I was 36, and the ONLY reason I did so was so I could keep tabs on a couple of my favorite bands who had MySpace pages. I never got a single friend request from anyone other than someone trying to get me to see their porn webcam…it was pretty much spam whenever I got anything. I really had no interest in it, I didn’t want to trick out my page, I don’t really want everyone to know every intimate or minute detail about my life…it just isn’t a very interesting site to me. I really, really didn’t want to have a Facebook page, but I think my wife or someone said I should get one and I thought it couldn’t hurt. So I did. Within a day, old friends I hadn’t seen since high school started to send me friend requests. So I accepted them. I’ve reconnected with probably a quarter or more of my graduating class through Facebook. I honestly don’t get into the games, the poking people and sending them virtual drinks…I think it’s asinine, pointless and a waste of time. But it has been nice having chats with people I like but have lost touch with. I never really considered why these people were on Facebook and not MySpace, but it does seem like they’ve got the social networking thing down better. Though there is a lot of immature, pointless crap on both sites, Facebook just seems to have more for me to do. Now I still don’t log onto it on a daily basis, probably not even a weekly basis, but it’s not like I don’t still log into my MySpace account every now and then if there’s a reason to (again, usually to check on the goings on of a favorite band), but I guess I don’t see it as much as “white flight” as “intelligent flight”. I mean, this article makes it seem like there aren’t any smart non-whites to make the migration…seems to me this is more an issue of smart people going where there is something more engaging for them, not so much an issue of people being afraid to interact with black culture (or worry that their property values were going down as in the 70s). If anything, I think this article makes some good points, but it kind of throws out there that whites are terrified of black culture, but doesn’t back that up, and basically I don’t agree. I just think smart people have nothing to say to morons, and anyone who tries to make that into a racial issue maybe ought to realize that causation does not equal correlation.

I see it as more of a maturity gap than a racial one. Kids start out on Myspace, and migrate over to FaceBook when they outgrow it. I see far more adults on FaceBook as well.

Edited to add: I went to an extremely racially diverse high school, and much of my graduating class is on FaceBook, including people of every color.

@Facade _My space is full of young, boisterous, (and more often than not) ghetto people. _

That was my impression – very young and I imagined, very loud in real life. Not a B&W difference – but the stats from the two companies do support the reality of a racial preference. I think that possibly Kev hit on one aspect, older and more conventional people probably do not want to feel pressure to “keep up” by spending a lot of time tricking out their pages.

I saw it as the sort of young kids who prefer Rap & HipHop but I didn’t consider the existing racial preferences with regard to that style of music. The other aspect was language, in tone more than in fact. I wasn’t comfortable there, but at my age even Facebook is not something I really feel comfortable with. I only use it to keep current with my daughters and younger workmates.

My BlackBerry has the ability to let me know when one of them posts something new. I guess that it could for Myspace as well – I haven’t looked for apps for that purpose. The Facebook app came pre-installed.

never tried it. never intend to. the concept seems utterly useless to me.

@DarkScribe No, that’s fair.

As for the racial division, it isn’t as sharply cleaved as you think. There are just as many people from a ethnic minority on Facebook as there are on Myspace. The only difference is that, as stated by @Facade, there aren’t blinding glitter images, five videos running simultaneously, background music, money signs and all that other business.

Instead, Facebook allows people to indulge in user-created quizzes, horoscopes, personality tests, etc. It’s a fair trade, and, as you said, a generational difference; you go to a young person’s profile page, chances are you’re going to see this stuff. For everyone else, they keep their work info, contact information, a few pictures of the kids and perhaps a short bio. That’s it.

Essentially, I’m not going to agree with the article saying that Facebook triggered a “white flight”. If anything, it was a fickle group of teens that realized Myspace was getting to convoluted and moved onto the next thing. They were pompous, wanted to be seen as an adult and moved onto Facebook; something more “classy”, mature, subdued and intelligent.

As I said, minority groups are just as represented on Facebook as Myspace (take a look at my profile; < 75% all 250~ of my friends are black, Hispanic, or Asian). Really, can you imagine a group of Neo-Nazis going to all the white folk on Myspace and saying, “There are too many coons on here. Let’s move to Facebook, of which we know next to nothing about and may or may not be created by black folk. There, they won’t follow us”?

You could argue that these kinds of things aren’t necessarily orchestrated, that they just happen. But – really. Facebook, in itself, does not tolerate racial prejudice. There is no difference between Myspace and Facebook in that regards… actually – if anything – Myspace is more likely to allow a Confederate Flag to be used as an avatar picture. It makes no sense, and this teeny tiny, factually devoid article comes off as nothing more than poppycock; like a misinformed article written quickly to get out the door.

@Grisaille You crack me up lol!

@Grisaille factually devoid article comes off as nothing more than poppycock; like a misinformed article written quickly to get out the door.

It is actually heavily supported by facts – otherwise I would dismiss it without comment. The article is supported by both Facebook and Myspace user registration times and details. The interpretation put on it comes from Myspace and Facebook’s own assessment of the migration (let’s not call it a flight.) This was just a summary – there is even mention of it in several Annual Reports with the holding companies involved. That was where the debate in my office originated – annual report previews. It is being used to justify both existing losses and reduced targets plus increased expectations on the more popular side.

The facts are real – the interpretation is based on surveys from people who have or had a foot in both camps. It was not a huge series of surveys and could well be inaccurate. That is why I was curious about Fluther response – we have some good demographics here for an assessment.

@DarkScribe did they only look at race, or did they consider social class?

@JLeslie did they only look at race, or did they consider social class?

No unfortunately. Probably too hard and too difficult to ask the appropriate questions. They did use educational qualifications though, which is a sort of yardstick for class.

@DarkScribe Aha, I see – gotcha.

I didn’t see any citation, links or such and just dismissed it.

As @JLeslie said, I’d love to see social class – and yeah. It is difficult to pin that down.

Hmm…

I think my argument remains the same, though. Even if it did trigger a “racial migration”, it sure did even out pretty goddamn quickly.

I think I need to give this some more thought. Do you have any related links, @DarkScribe?

@Grisaille I think I need to give this some more thought. Do you have any related links,

Just the annual report, and until they are released to shareholders, they are confidential. There are a number of nearly identical articles through various international media – it was clearly hand-fed.

If you express interest with any of the parent companies, you can be sent a pdf of the report or a link to it when it is released. This annual report season (economic downturn) is full of excuses for reduced profits and lowered future expectations – many things similar to this Facebook/Myspace report will be heavily biased to explain an inability on behalf of management to manage. I don’t hold with the thrust of the report, not the reasons, but I was surprised by the fact of the racial bias (in a stats sense – not prejudice sense) in the demographics of the two companies.

@DarkScribe That’s hilarious. This is a great question, by the way.

Speaking of, what of Twitter? Are you involved that as well?

I’ve always wondered how Twitter is able to support itself; no ad revenue, no ventures into other projects that I know of. I can’t wrap my head around how they’re able to stay active.

Hell, the guys who take the API and create platforms, essentially using the service and selling the program make money.

@Grisaille Speaking of, what of Twitter? Are you involved that as well?

Because I write about IT, technology and Lifestyle – I have to be at least cursorily involved in all things new.

I find Twitter inane and a recent report suggests that less than ten percent of Twitter members have ever tweeted, and of those ten, a further ten are the actual day to day core who hold the house of cards upright.

A few contemporaries and I played some games with it and found various ways to get a rapid following. The usual, sex, religion, gossip and politics. We started forty different profiles and said outrageous things on them. A pretend teenage wife thinking about and then actually cheating on her much older husband got an instant huge following. Lots of pretend sexual details.

You aren’t the author of this article are ya? :P

Personal opinion of Twitter aside, those are some interesting numbers. I know there are a large amount of spambots and fickle people, but I’d never figure that large a number.

As for the “house of cards” itself, you don’t know how they are able to sustain revenue, do you? They have no advertising on their site and their API is free to use – yet, the sheer size of the user base demands some pretty powerful server space (not to mention maintenance, expansion, actual programmers, etc). I just don’t get it.

@Grisaille As for the “house of cards” itself, you don’t know how they are able to sustain revenue, do you?

The rumour mill has it that they are doing the same as Google, (Gmail) and analysing content to create marketing demographics. That is one of the reasons we played with so many fake profiles. (the others were all because it was fun to do.) If you take one profile and talk about photography you start getting spammed with photography related email and tweets. (After they follow you) If you talk about wanting to visit your grandmother in Ireland, you start getting spammed from travel agents, hotels and airlines.

This is unsubstantiated and denied by the people involved. But – try it yourself.

I see… That’s awfully sneaky, if true. They do have an easy to use search feature…

A little too easy…

@Grisaille _That’s awfully sneaky, if true. _

Very few people who use Gmail realise that every email they said is read by Google – electronically, not by real people, and the data used to build a profile about the sender. That is in Gmail’s fine print, something most people just click on without reading.

If Google can make billions from it, it would be amazing if more people who offer apparently free services aren’t doing something similar.

Which is fine, and I don’t think anyone should have a problem with that. However, how far this goes and how much information they store should probably be made public – even though I doubt it would be. When the Gmail servers spark up and become sentient, knowing all details about our lives, who’s going to save us?

Moving forward:

Honestly, if a service wants to collect information and sell it to ad agencies so they know my demographic better and what shoe sell me, I could care less. As it has been said before, don’t put anything you don’t want made public on the internet – something that sounds so painfully obvious to the point of oxymoron-ism.

And regarding your last statement, it’s awfully hard these days to incorporate something like that unless you’re incredibly popular already, don’t you think? Even still, there are millions of people on Facebook apparently; don’t you think someone would notice that the ads are slowly disappearing? I’m sure someone would stop to read the fine print, too.

Something as seemingly personal as Facebook would be considered Big Brother. People have such a large amount of personal data on there – they’d freak out if they knew that the parent company was selling it away. (which brings me back to my earlier point – QUIT PUTTING PERSONAL SHIT ON THE WEB)

@augustlan: SMURFS!?

The thing I like about Facebook is that it’s sleek and clean. Sure, you can clutter up your page with apps and whatnot, but the design keeps it pretty much to the side. It’s also quite seamless in its navigation, as compared to other sites like Myspace and Friendster.

It’s that whole ‘clean whiteboard’ appeal to me on which I can scribble and erase very nicely (ie writing on a person’s wall). It’s not just the intelligence levels which play a part, it’s the functions too. Facebook wins hands down.

If you were to ask me why I think this ‘white migration’ is taking place, I have a few thoughts:

1. It’s all about the maturity level. When you’re young, you want to dazzle with bright sparkly lights and colours and glitters and music and just show everything off. Sure, it might work for youngsters, but Facebook provides a chance for individuality on a canvas of new and hip ‘maturity’ so to speak.

It’s not just the ‘intelligent’ whites who’ve moved on, it’s also the other non-Caucasians who’ve moved on (and who’ve probably started out with Facebook since it’s the new in thing).

As @Grisaille previously noted, Myspace has waaayyy too much glitter. Eurgh…

2. And even if the ‘white migration’ were true, this might be reflective of prevailing social conditions. Correct me if I’m wrong, but in Western countries isn’t it still the case that the white majority tend to have an upper hand in terms of education as compared to those of other ethnic backgrounds?

Therefore, if this were true, you have this ‘smart upper-class privileged’ group who can appreciate Facebook for what it is, and so when it comes along, they then move to grab it, leaving the other groups who’re lower down on the social ladder (and who hence possibly can’t really appreciate Facebook due to their social conditions).

I’m gonna stretch this a bit further by having this possible scenario. Let’s say that you’re of an ethnic minority (Hispanic, for argument’s sake) and you live in a neighbourhood where the Hispanics are in the majority. You’ve all used Myspace and your friends are all on Myspace. When Facebook comes along, you keep in mind that its original purpose was for university people, upperclass people. Your community sees no need to go and switch to Facebook, probably because they don’t know enough people who do use Facebook.

So there’s no incentive to join Facebook. Perhaps there’s actually a disincentive to join Facebook. After all, who would want to be accused of using something which your community doesn’t? Who wants to run the risk of being ‘different’?

And this all because of your education status which is affected by your social community.

Few years back, I set up a MySpace page to keep up with my niece, who had just moved to New York.

I received a bunch of friend-requests from folks I hadn’t seen since school (both grade and high). After chatting back and forth for a bit, I realized something very important: If I haven’t spoken to you in all these years, there’s usually a really good reason for that.

So when Facebook was pitched to me as “a way to keep up and reconnect with old friends” I said, “I’ll pass”.

As for the article, I suspect if they had somehow measured social class, they would have different conclusions. But I don’t doubt there’s a racial element to it.

@Grisaille And regarding your last statement, it’s awfully hard these days to incorporate something like that unless you’re incredibly popular already, don’t you think?

It isn’t so much what you say or who follows you as who you follow and respond to that will build a marketing profile.

Say for instance that you are a fan of Paris Hilton (is there anyone left who hasn’t had sex with her?) and she buys something from brand XXX, you are likely to get spam from brand XXX.

Marketing is both subtle and obvious.

@cprevite I just can’t take you seriously with that delicious cookie avatar.

@DarkScribe I didn’t mean as an individual, I meant as an entity; service, corporation or otherwise.

Unless I’m just not getting what you’re saying because it’s 4:30 AM and I’m running out of steam.

And want chocolate chip cookies, for some reason.

Oh yes, and out of curiosity, has anyone here ever heard of Friendster? It’s very big here in SE Asia. And it suffers from horrible layouts too.

N.B. I just picked that one off randomly. The people in there have nothing to do with me whatsoever

@Grisaille

I think that we have switched horses – I am still talking about your query regarding Twitter and how they generate revenue – not Facebook. Or maybe I have lost track – it is late evening and I am on my third Scotch. :)

@Saturated_Brain Oh god my head

@DarkScribe Ahh, you see. You edited it. Now I can process it.

You had said: If Google can make billions from it, it would be amazing if more people who offer apparently free services aren’t doing something similar.

When I said: And regarding your last statement, it’s awfully hard these days to incorporate something like that unless you’re incredibly popular already, don’t you think? Even still, there are millions of people on Facebook apparently; don’t you think someone would notice that the ads are slowly disappearing? I’m sure someone would stop to read the fine print, too.

I was mistakenly assuming that they don’t already do it, but using it as an example. I mainly meant, it would be difficult for an upstart service to incorporate such a model if they do not have the userbase at their fingertips to even sell to the agencies.

Anywho, it’s a fair business and marketing strategy, in my opinion – the internet has given us the tools to map out demographics, what works and what doesn’t. So why not, I say?

If it means that I can get live feeds out of Iraq, participate in a million dollar fund raising event in hopes of saving a life/change health care and get breaking news as it happens from citizen journalists – the ones who matter – I could care less if I get some ads trying to sell me industrial strength deodorant.

@Grisaille: Hey, stop looking at me that way.

And wipe the drool from your chin.

I…

EAT…

YOUR…

COOKIE!

I EAT IT UP!

holy hell did that sound wrong

@Grisaille: Step away from the milk and no one gets hurt.

@Grisaille Ahh, you see. You edited it. Now I can process it.

Apologies – I keep having afterthoughts.

Meh. I like facebook. It’s an easy way to keep connected to everyone, without racking up a huge phone bill or wasting all your credit, especially for organising events and inviting everyone. I like how much control and choice over your privacy you get and stuff like that. When I’m bored I occasionally do a quiz but I don’t publish them because I find it annoying when the homepage is all clogged up.

I don’t know about the whole myspace thing…. I think it’s just old now. And people who have said it’s a maturity thing, I think that sums it up best. I know a lot of people from younger grades in my school, none of the black or ghetto that still use facebook, though most people my age and up have moved on to facebook.

I was on MySpace for a year or so, but found it quite annoying. I was constantly getting “let’s hook up” messages, and that was not what I was there for.
A friend of mine suggested I try Facebook, explaining that MySpace was like a bar, and Facebook is more like a neighborhood bulletin board. She was right.
I have reconnected with a lot of childhood friends, and I find it easier to show anyone who is interested pictures, and keep them up to date with what’s going on in my life.

I had a facebook for about 5 minutes, was flooded with friend requests from people I don’t even know or like, played a little Tetris, and deleted the thing.

I think somebody created me a myspace, which just pisses me off…

So if I was going to have either myspace or Facebook, it would definitely be Facebook…

But I’d prefer to have neither right now. I don’t really need to “connect” with my friends outside of school or gmail chat. I talk to plenty of people and have enough of a social life without me online. I’m in plenty of places online, but not Facebook or Myspace. Just never saw the need.

What the heck is wrong with all these people on facebook having to tell everyone every second of their life? “I just got up, still sleepy. I ate breakfast. Going to Wallmart…” Who cares? Don’t these people know they sound stupid and needy?

@chyna: Gotta agree with that.

While I am not on Facebook, some of my friends and family are – and they’ve shown me their pages (attempting to entice me to join).

Many are like a public diary or confessional. Why would you want to publish these things? Is this what happens to a generation that grew up with Jerry Springer?

There is such a thing as too much sharing.

regardles of what anyone believes it dont matter as long as were not intentionally hurting each other and treating people as we ourselves would like to be treated then bring on the colour or as “Skittle’s” advertisments in Australia put it ‘taste the rainbow’

I have yet to post a status on my Facebook page (for the same reason I’ve never tweeted), basically if you need or want to know what I’m up to at any given moment, you probably already do. Why do 50 other people who don’t care need to know that?

@chyna

Isn’t that what Twitter is like? A whole website dedicated to Facebook status updates? I agree that there is a such thing as too much sharing. But I think we would probably disagree on what “too much sharing” is. For me, sharing boring everyday things that no one cares about is too much.

I think a lot of times the people who update their status that much are younger. I was looking back at my oldest Facebook comments (back in ‘06 and ‘07) and I noticed that I updated my status a lot more with things like ”...is tired” or ”...is doing homework” and such and as I got older I did that less and less. Now I usually update it if I really do have something interesting/fun/funny to share or if I’m going away to let people know that I might not be using it for a few days or so.

And personally, I love Facebook. One of my most favorite and visited websites. I don’t really care about racial crap. Those on Myspace can easily choose to come on Facebook; no one is discriminating against them. Facebook is more organized and more “professional” than Myspace and I like it that way. I use it for what it’s designed for and I see nothing wrong with that. I’m a social person. I like “connecting”, even on the internet.

@DominicX I have never been on twitter so I couldn’t say. The people I am talking about are people in their 50’s. Surprising, isn’t it?

@chyna

I almost want to say that has to do with that they’re not really familiar with the internet and they’re just excited to be using it and thus they’re kind of overdoing it.

@DominicX they’re not really familiar with the internet and they’re just excited to be using it and thus they’re kind of overdoing it.

How can you feel that people in their fifties are not familiar with the internet? They created it. I am fifty-five and I have worked with IT one way or another all of my working life. I have been using the internet privately (as against when I was in the Military) since 1982, back before the web when people used Unix or C/PM and often wrote their own apps. Almost every male who I know who is close to my age or a little older has similar experience. Many women really only became involved in a post Tim Berners-Lee era.

personally, i like facebook. the quizzes and stuff are pretty annoying, though i occasionally post one when i’m bored. it’s a quick way to contact people, and since a lot of people have them, it’s pretty efficient. being in high school, it’s especially helpful if you are having trouble with an assignment or can’t figure out what the homework was. i keep my facebook more private – though there’s a few people here and there i’m not really friends with, i know more or less who all of them are – so i feel more comfortable in that sense. i think myspace is kind of fun though, and i wish people didn’t ‘migrate’ from it completely. ):

i think that’s just a complete generalization. it seems to me that people in general are flocking to facebook because of change in interest, not because of their race and class. i’ve seen the majority of my myspace friends – black, white, spanish, etc – start to put down myspace and promote their facebooks instead.
i feel like we’re (in general, not we as in fluther directly) quick to make some sort of racial connection wherever we can, even when there isn’t really evidence of it being completely true.

I hate twitter and love facebook. And, I do change my status 2 or 3 times a day…sometimes it’s a question, sometimes it is a tv show, sometimes it is how I am feeling, sometimes it is what I am doing. I love connecting with friends and family and seeing their photos, hearing their stories. I also play wordscraper on there, which is like scrabble, I actually made a new “friend” playing with someone I didn’t know previously, she fits right in, wound up being a very nice acquaintance.

Also, my closest best girlfriends now have more contact with my sister, which makes me very happy. They get a long very well, they are so FUNNY on facebook, well they were always funny these friends and my sister, but it is exaggerated on facebook…truly entertaining.

@DarkScribe

Even so, “social networking” is often thought of as “kid thing”. My dad is very well-immersed in computers and he’s 51. He knows everything to know about them, he builds them, he knows how to program, he knows all that. But he’s not interested the least bit in social networking. I also know plenty of kids whose parents are not into computers at all. I’m referring to those who are getting their first taste of social networking and overdo it, be they 50 or 15.

i personally love facebook it allows me to keep in touch with people i wudnt normally be able to talk to its awsome. as for the whole myspace= ghetto i dont think thats true and racism is in everything these days i cant even watch a cartoon with my 5 year old cousin with out something racist coming out

@angelic_fire_hazzard55555 I’m interested in this cartoon racist thing, like what?

im not sure exactly what shows but several are very sexist and racist i mean these r childrens shows they shouldnt be like this they are also very sexually aware like spongebob is a really bad one lots of sexual reference

@DominicX DarkScribe _Even so, “social networking” is often thought of as “kid thing”.

I’ll certainly agree with that. The last thing that most activity on social networking sites could truly be describes as is truly “social networking.” Like many words and phrases nowadays it has been distorted out of any semblance of its original meaning. Who really had two thousand friends – most of whom they have never met?

True social networking was prevalent in the early days of the internet/usenet, well before the WEB. People were actually social, they chatted with each other, knew each other, developed true friendships. It was similar to Ham Radio, in fact many early adopters of the internet were Ham operators.

I knew a lot of people in the early days from previous radio contact and QSL cards.

Thinking about those days brings back memories that I haven’t had for decades:

I am coming to enjoy mine, one for friends and one for family. Facebook has great privacy features.

Being an actor Face Book is great. In support of My Space I can say that I know a lot of bands on My Space as I am coming to understand it is good for publishing your music (if you are a musician). So ‘Go Face Book’ ‘Go My Space’ and any site that promotes public dialogue.

Facebook has been fantastic for keeping up with cak’s ups and downs during and after her surgery!

Absolutely, @augustlan.