A curious melancholy infests the New Yorker’s profile. You wonder, for example, to what extent Zuckerberg actually possesses an interior life of his own. He doesn’t seem passionate about much in particular. At the age of 26, he bought a car but only after asking his friends for suggestions (he wanted something “safe, comfortable, not ostentatious” and ended up with an Acura TSX, which Wikipedia defines as “an entry-level luxury car”).
So, err... According to Wired, your interior life is best represented by your interest in cars?
I'm not sure Google's alleged "honest" interface is only a product of company culture: The launch of Buzz was the target of as much criticism as received by Facebook.
It might just be that social network interfaces interact with users more intimately, and thus are more problematic to toy around with.
Either way, Facebook's chameleon interface is definitely irritating. You can see some of their design anti-patterns here: http://wiki.darkpatterns.org/wiki/Home
Google almost always rolls back anti-patterns once it's clear people aren't fond of them.
Facebook unveils roughly 8 anti-patterns with every re-do and rolls back the most egregious 4. The result is Facebook get significantly worse with every iteration.
Most of the recent ones though, I've solved with NoScript and only browsing Facebook in a dedicated browser. (I really need to make something a little more robust; effectively a Facebook app running on a Webkit core that opens all external links in Firefox. That would sandbox the social graph, and let me read links out of Facebook normally.)
It's hard to tell people what they should love and hate without coming off as petty. Yeah, you had some issue that bugged you and Facebook was involved. Your likes and dislikes are not everyone's. Some are happy to trade privacy for convenience, and some aren't. That's what freedom is about.
Because you can leave Google. You may not want to, and they do a great job of having features nobody else has, but if they piss you off enough, there's plenty of email providers.
Facebook, on the other hand, holds your social network hostage. We'll always resent any site that takes advantage of that.
I think you are overdramatizing Facebook's importance quite a little bit here. It's not like your friends will hate you when you quit and I have seen plenty of people quit online social networks while retaining their life just fine.
I could make up a similar argument the other way around: to me, services like Facebook provide little to no value; I can quit them just fine. I have communication details of a lifetime in Google, I store my documents with them, organize my calendar. (Note: I have heard Google's export features are quite okayish so that argument does not really hold.)
Facebook? Why should I sign into Mark Zuckerberg’s site to download a presentation...somewhere else...it still felt like a kind of category error. This was Facebook pushing its nose too far into someone else’s business.
That's exactly what I don't like about Facebook being everywhere....my solution was to setup privoxy and expunge any script debris from Facebook and google.
Your time online should be slightly more productive and private.
Next “great” thing: logging in to our bank account with Facebook.
Yeah, Facebook was a smart idea, and, yeah, it deserves respect.
But its going too far.
I will not conform. I will not become part of this stupid machine.
I still use facebook, but I use it as a means to read articles from Wired, NPR, TED talks, etc.
The way "instant personalization" works is that when you a visit one of the few sites where this is turned on, you are automatically logged in using your Facebook account (if you have one) without asking you first. The lack of explicit consent for linking accounts on two different web sites together is the privacy violation.
Once you know about this you can turn off that feature in your Facebook settings.
can someone please give me the reason why people feel that facebook is "violating privacy" in a way that has nothing to do with the acceleration of technology?
[+] [-] pluies|15 years ago|reply
So, err... According to Wired, your interior life is best represented by your interest in cars?
[+] [-] Herring|15 years ago|reply
Easy on the nitpicking, guys.
[+] [-] shmichael|15 years ago|reply
It might just be that social network interfaces interact with users more intimately, and thus are more problematic to toy around with.
Either way, Facebook's chameleon interface is definitely irritating. You can see some of their design anti-patterns here: http://wiki.darkpatterns.org/wiki/Home
[+] [-] sprout|15 years ago|reply
Facebook unveils roughly 8 anti-patterns with every re-do and rolls back the most egregious 4. The result is Facebook get significantly worse with every iteration.
Most of the recent ones though, I've solved with NoScript and only browsing Facebook in a dedicated browser. (I really need to make something a little more robust; effectively a Facebook app running on a Webkit core that opens all external links in Firefox. That would sandbox the social graph, and let me read links out of Facebook normally.)
[+] [-] wccrawford|15 years ago|reply
It's hard to tell people what they should love and hate without coming off as petty. Yeah, you had some issue that bugged you and Facebook was involved. Your likes and dislikes are not everyone's. Some are happy to trade privacy for convenience, and some aren't. That's what freedom is about.
[+] [-] jlgbecom|15 years ago|reply
Facebook, on the other hand, holds your social network hostage. We'll always resent any site that takes advantage of that.
[+] [-] lehmannro|15 years ago|reply
I could make up a similar argument the other way around: to me, services like Facebook provide little to no value; I can quit them just fine. I have communication details of a lifetime in Google, I store my documents with them, organize my calendar. (Note: I have heard Google's export features are quite okayish so that argument does not really hold.)
[+] [-] amanuel|15 years ago|reply
That's exactly what I don't like about Facebook being everywhere....my solution was to setup privoxy and expunge any script debris from Facebook and google.
Your time online should be slightly more productive and private.
[+] [-] cherisevill|15 years ago|reply
This was a great article, by the way. http://xtremenowarnings.com/xtremeno-review-does-xtreme-no-s...
[+] [-] brown9-2|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skybrian|15 years ago|reply
Once you know about this you can turn off that feature in your Facebook settings.
[+] [-] jfb|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] toodlestech|15 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] zackattack|15 years ago|reply
can someone please give me the reason why people feel that facebook is "violating privacy" in a way that has nothing to do with the acceleration of technology?