I'm really starting to dislike FB. For whatever reason, Google seem to have more of a benificient presence in my eyes - maybe it's just the large numbers of highly useful tools they have developed and then distributed for free, and predominantly ad-free also. But whatever the reason, FB has none of that respect, and stories like this just go further to enhance my distaste for FB. Something always seems to smell funny whenever FB gets involved..

Two peas in a pod, in my opinion.

miniyazz
I'm really starting to dislike FB.

Agreed. Facebook is becoming a social menace, also full of rubbish.

Hang on I thought FaceBook was owned by Google, or am I thinking of MySpace?

MySpace is News Corp.

Facebook has been invested in by a fair few people, it's allegedly worth billions and squillions as its own entity.

Saracen
Two peas in a pod, in my opinion.

Personally i don't see Google as a bad guy, they have a pretty good monopoly in a lot of areas and are doing damned well in the areas they compete in but i haven't really seen or heard much about them being particularly malicious. Facebook has become a complete monster, not only that it seems to be a monster with a lot of arrogance without actual intelligence to back it up.

Im talking relatively (to other similar companies/organizations/corporations or whatever) of course.

I completely agree, I was only recently encouraged to make an account and a few weeks on, I'm still left wondering what all the fuss is about? I really don't see anything so interesting about it that encourages so many people to spend most of their day glued to it? Or am I just a bit strange, not really caring how many times a day people visit the toilet, or how many gallons of fluorescent alcoholic drink they had the night before?

I think that fb v google is simply about revenue. fb would love to be a messaging, search and advertising behometh, exactly what google is now!

watercooled
Hang on I thought FaceBook was owned by Google, or am I thinking of MySpace?

Could you be thinking of YouTube? Google created/owns Orkut.

watercooled
I completely agree, I was only recently encouraged to make an account and a few weeks on, I'm still left wondering what all the fuss is about? I really don't see anything so interesting about it that encourages so many people to spend most of their day glued to it? Or am I just a bit strange, not really caring how many times a day people visit the toilet, or how many gallons of fluorescent alcoholic drink they had the night before?

I think you are on one extreme, or giving pretty exaggerated example, or simply have friends who behave in fairly different manner.

There is relatively little to say about someone going to the loo or binge drinking (don't have that issue), but I for instance have a mild interest finding out that some of my friends have gone on holiday and where, so that I can break into their.. wait, no… in case it's a destination I am interested in. And incidentally, I am seriously looking at Norway, and through share coincidental FaceStalking, I found out that one of my friend is thinking of it too (so we might do the trip together), and another one is currently there (so I can ask all about it when she's back).

What I also find it useful for, is / setting up / social events. Take a friend's surprise birthday party: A knows that B knows that I am friend with the birthday girl so invite me to a surprise party, and get me to invite anyone else who may know her too. I happened to have been classmates with the birthday girl and C, so I can easily invite over by sending the event link. And so on. From there, we can discuss how we are going to this, agree to a time and location and so on. Yes, it is not something we can't do through email, but I actually find it more convenient. This is even more true when giving the head-up for exhibitions and bigger scale events.

At the end of the day, it's a bit like what we are doing here (on Hexus). Yes, discuss the latest news and hardware, rant about politics. Those aren't life changing activities either, and not every posts is going to interest everyone. There is much of the same though, from people discussing AV last week (in the way it's done here, i.e. some more intelligently than others). It's kinda like a community where everyone you see is a friend of a friend (or acquaintance at the very least).

—-

I avoid putting too much personal details on FB. For what it is, the main thing that has been bugging me is all the messing about the interface / settings since I joined (and I was a fairly late adopter too), occasionally making certain actions harder to do, or simply removing it altogether. And then, this latest news doesn't impress me in the least either.

No it was definitely some social networking site I was thinking of, but it's probably just two stories getting mixed up in my head.

Yeah that is a pretty extreme example, but even so I've made about 3 posts since I joined and I think they have just been to break the ice if you get what I mean. I'm also very cautious about what I share - all you'd know through FB is my name, general location and that I look remarkably like an ‘05 Impreza. ;)

I agree it’s useful for the contact aspect - everyone already seems to use it so it's relatively easy to get in touch with people, and that's the reason I signed up really.

The number of options to configure when you sign up is plain frightening, even for me! I feel sorry for your average Joe when presented with these options, and I'm still finding stuff hidden away I thought I'd already configured. And I was shocked by the number of email boxes - do people really want to be alerted every time someone sneezes? They should have some sympathy for email providers and leave most disabled by default - one person could bring down a small ISP with those settings! Needless to say, I un-ticked the lot. I don't trust FB as far as I could throw an Antec 1200, so I think the best policy is to assume everything is public and if they keep it private, it's a bonus.

I suppose it's comes down to (mentally) filtering what you find interesting to what you do not find interesting. As far as email notification are concerned, left it on just to see it accumulate.. in an account I created just for the purpose :) And as for privacy setting, mine is almost on paranoid (most stuff is on “Friend only” if not “Just Me”).

watercooled
I don't trust FB as far as I could throw an Antec 1200, so I think the best policy is to assume everything is public and if they keep it private, it's a bonus.

Agreed and not necessarily just because they are untrustworthy either; hackers will always definitively be one step ahead of the developers because they are making the running. The developers' jobs are to react and counter the initial move made by the hacker… so you can't really trust any web technology, just have to hope you're not important enough to target and keep as much of your details to yourself as you can.

Interesting stuff about FB here. It's my view that, without detracting from any other comments made on this article, FB has been successful because it allows individuals to “sanitise” society and compartmentalise it into packets, which can be consumed at the user's convenience. It suits the world of superficiality and mistrust that we live in today and so has been a massive hit.

Personally, being a developer myself, I honestly believe that the user interface is absolutely bloody awful and that most people could do a better job while drunk and not really paying much attention to the job in hand… I also prefer to be able to hear and see people when talking, so the little bits of dialogue are unsatisfactory… it's SMS without paying.

I concede that it is handy for keeping in touch with “occasional” friends/family and for organising events.

Googles moto is “Do not evil”, however due to its size it can't help it at times. However Facebook seems to have been born sold out, would do anything for a buck and is getting more evil by the minute. Minor example… create new privacy options, set them all to be “open” by default.

Their official motto isn't actually “do no evil” :) Only their unofficial one.

hermano pequeño;2078314
Personally, being a developer myself, I honestly believe that the user interface is absolutely bloody awful and that most people could do a better job while drunk and not really paying much attention to the job in hand…

Oh I think the interface is awful myself - when I signed up and started adding friends it essentially locked up a few times, didn't send some requests and said something along the lines of ‘could not send…’, requiring me to log out-in a few times. Also some posts just decide to not appear, and why is their no simple ‘friends’ button which, you know, takes you to your friends list?

oolon
Googles moto is “Do not evil”, however due to its size it can't help it at times.

Yep, I remember a line in a news article where someone was of the opinion that “when you're an elephant you can't always avoid stepping on ants” when referring to Google's occasional faux-pas. They may aim to “Do no evil” but sometimes that's unavoidable.

oolon
However Facebook seems to have been born sold out, would do anything for a buck and is getting more evil by the minute. Minor example… create new privacy options, set them all to be “open” by default.

+1 on this. It's interesting (to me at least) to see that FB-presence seems to becoming a must-have for a lot of businesses. Most of the ones I've done biz with this week online have had that “Follow us on Facebook™” link somewhere.

From what I can see it's also an age-related thing, the older you are the more irrelevant FB is (website version of that place in Logan's Run?). Certainly my teenage kid (and her pals) all regard it as a must-have. Me, on the other hand, doesn't think I'm missing anything by being FB-free. :P

Ask yourself, “if these two companies had to disappear tomorrow, which would you miss most?” and I'm pretty sure that in the majority of folks are going to say “Google”. :)

Didn't Apple and/or Microsoft already try a smear campaign? In which case, how did that turn out?

There is another reason I like FB over emails: you can remove people you add. I am sometime weary that someone decent I've just met may not be very net savvy (isn't this a word? it's underlined in the spell check :/), and decide to do plug my email where I'd rather s/he did not. Sure I've had the odd spam from people who just couldn't resist clicking on the “Find out who checked your profile” link (paraphrasing), but they can be easily deleted. And if I find that I really can't stand someone, I have the option of unfriending+blocking them.. or at the very least putting them on restricted view while we sort out our differences (it's rare, but it's not a bad option to have).

Fair enough that people call foul on FB's tactics (however such practices are the “industry standard”, Google also employs several PR companies which probably do the same)

However to me the real matter in this topic is the subject itself, Google's Social Circles.
I'm very surprised almost everywhere this “smear” was reported failed to include a link for us to check our Social Circle, to let us determine for ourselves which is worse, the smear or the actual claim.

So if you haven't yet please have a look at:

http://www.google.com/s2/search/social

And see for yourselves what Google publicly keeps on your connections (maybe they even keep more, who knows)

Btw, as far as I can tell there's no opt out other than to remove your contacts.

Clicked the link - “This service is not available”. Profiles is not available for my Google Apps domain.

there was very little therte for me, just the contacts from my g-mail account o_O dont see the big deal

Same, but it only shows Gmail addresses, and it seems to be only the ones I've recently been in chat with. Can't say I expected that - Google knowing what contacts I have saved on that account in my Gmail address book! :O

I don't really see what the big deal is either - so Google has a list of a few people in my address book? I have email with Google, I expect them to. Plus, 11 of the 18 it mentions I can't even remember who they are, they're that insignificant (and I should probably delete them from my address list) and another one is me with a different user account. The ‘secondary connections’ appear to be general BS.

Is there a reason I should be concerned about this? If so, I'm all ears. But I find it hard to get excited on discovering that the company who provides me with email knows who's in my address book.

This is old news I am sure, but I don't log into YouTube often. And I just found out that I -have- to link my YouTube account to a Google account. Pain in the bum, because I'd much rather keep things separate. Consider this my first moan at Google, and I am going to think carefully whether I really want to do this.

TooNice
This is old news I am sure, but I don't log into YouTube often. And I just found out that I -have- to link my YouTube account to a Google account. Pain in the bum, because I'd much rather keep things separate. Consider this my first moan at Google, and I am going to think carefully whether I really want to do this.

Right, but there's nothing stopping you having multiple gmail accounts - why not just create a new ID for junk stuff like Youtube?

I know it's not exactly the best solution, but it's probably better than connecting it to an account when you'd rather not

Indeed, I was thinking of doing that, but the whole ‘permanence’ of it (the process used to be, but no longer is reversible) makes me wonder which account I should link my ‘primary’ YT account (the one where I upload the odd video). It's not important enough to merge with the email I signed up with (I don't want them to share the same login/password), but it's not unimportant enough for me to associate with my ‘public PC’ account and share the login of that either.