Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I’m sure you banged some questionable people yourself.

Happy indictment week to all who celebrate!

In short, I come down firmly on all sides of the issue.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

Consistently wrong since 2002

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

T R E 4 5 O N

Putin dreamed of ending NATO, and now it’s Finnish-ed.

The arc of history bends toward the same old fuckery.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

A last alliance of elves and men. also pet photos.

Spilling the end game before they can coat it in frankl luntz-approved dogwhistles.

You can’t love your country only when you win.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

Balloon Juice has never been a refuge for the linguistically delicate.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

Optimism opens the door to great things.

Technically true, but collectively nonsense

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

You cannot shame the shameless.

You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Site Maintenance / Balloon Juice on Facebook

Reader Interactions

171Comments

  3. 3.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    What are community pages? Why would I want to link my profile to community pages?
    Community pages — the pages that link from fields you fill out in your profile — are for general topics and all kinds of unofficial but interesting things. You “like” these pages to connect with them, but they aren’t run by a single author, and they don’t generate News Feed stories.

    There are many benefits to adding community pages to your profile:

    They let you see what people are saying about stuff that matters to you — whether that’s cooking, a political movement or even your pets.
    They let your friends learn more about you by simply clicking on your interests.
    Some topics feature content from Wikipedia to help you learn more about things you find interesting.
    They turn your profile into a living map of all the connections that matter to you, instead of a static list of your interests.

  7. 7.

    zmulls

    No! No! Don’t do it! Even people who post here aren’t going to “Like” you..!!!

    Seriously, though, what would be the point? I don’t want to live on Facebook. I go there to look up old friends, or friends at a distance, and engage in small performance art pieces.

    Why would I friend a Balloon Juice page, just to clutter up my feed? When I want to see what BJers are saying (which is a few times a day) I come over here. It’s a blog, and lives in a blog space — I don’t need to see new posts on FB, when I’ll see them soon enough.

    Though, if you give Tunch a page, I’ll friend him.

  8. 8.

    PeakVT

    Entertainment, unless the cause is pet rescue.

    ETA: Of course, I don’t really care because one line in my hosts file says “127.0.0.1 www . facebook . com”.

  10. 10.

    JPL

    I don’t do facebook.. Cause I don’t want to
    Also, tooo Community sounds like you are some type of organizer and we know what that means…

  11. 11.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    or go to Account> help center and look at the options.

    Here’s Organization:

    A musical artist, business, or brand can create Facebook Pages to share information, interact with their fans, and create a highly engaging presence plugged into Facebook’s social graph. These Pages are distinct presences, separate from users’ profiles, and optimized for these presences’ needs to communicate, distribute information/content, engage their fans, and capture new audiences virally through their fans’ recommendations to their friends. Facebook Pages are designed to be a media rich, valuable presence solution for any artist, business, or brand that can be integrated seamlessly into the user experience with socially-relevant applications.

    Click here to create a Page for an organization of which you are an authorized representative.

  12. 12.

    Hunter Gathers

    Community. Just keep Tunch away from Mafia Wars. I get enough help requests as it is.

  13. 13.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    I agree, don’t do it. My page is tightly controlled, you don’t want to even fuck with it.

  15. 15.

    Violet

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred):

    They let your friends learn more about you by simply clicking on your interests.

    Jeez, that creeps me out. It’s not your “friends” that “learn more about you”, it’s companies trying to sell you stuff. And probably the government.

    And not everyone wants all their “friends” to “learn more about them” just by clicking on their “interests.” Like with politics. It’s not necessarily smart to be public about your politics in the workplace. I guess you could clamp down all the privacy settings and/or follow equal numbers of left/right people or organizations so it confuses people.

    Ugh. Stupid Facebook.

  17. 17.

    FlipYrWhig

    I’d be all for BJ having a FB presence, because I try to spread the word about the wonders of this place (apart from a few spidery corners), and FB is a great way to reach the elusive friends of friends of friends audience.

  19. 19.

    jl

    BJ is a miserable lefty blog, so there was no ‘Parents’ Basement’ option? Maybe there is an ‘other templates’ thingee Cole can click on, and scroll through to find something more appropriate.

    If not, I agree with commenter above, go with the one with the bottle.

    Why does a blog need a facebook page? Isn’t a blog a kind of long scrolling face book page anyway?

  21. 21.

    Yevgraf

    cleek hates America and wants the soc!alistical commie marxist atheistical islamofascist librul jewish crony businessmen of Wall Street to end Our Military and Capitalism.

  26. 26.

    gmf

    Google+ this bitch.

    I’ll admit that G+ isn’t any better than facebook, but it’s not fucking facebook.

    Then you can grow a neckbeard.

  28. 28.

    MTiffany

    “Brand or Product”

    It’s all about the branding and shameless self-promotion. And monetization. Whatever the hell that is.

  31. 31.

    Stooleo

    When I first joined facebook I was amazed at the number of old friends I was able to find. Later I realized that there was a reason I never kept up with these people in the first place. Most my old friends are douchebags and facebook proves it everyday.

  32. 32.

    Jewish Steel

    Do Google+ instead. It’s a better interface and I’ve weeded out my all local and professional contacts over there.

    I like my political discourse like I like my ladies: anonymous and online. Ow! Ow!

  34. 34.

    Triassic Sands

    I recommend you forgo the “opportunity” presented by Facebook…it’s just one more (big) step on the road to living life virtually (not virtuously). Of course, you can have a “farm” on Facebook — only you’ll never get dirt under your fingernails or a callus on you hand, and what any of that has to do with farming is beyond me.

  35. 35.

    Violet

    One of the things I LOVE about B-J is that it doesn’t have those annoying as hell Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc. icons at the bottom of every single post and comment. I detest those things and they make me not want to visit places that do have them. /Luddite curmudgeon

  36. 36.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    Facebook has helped me reconnect with friends that I would never have been able to any other way. Batten down the hatches and use strong passwords and it’s just another tool. I don’t think it’s right for BJ but for me, it’s good.

  38. 38.

    SiubhanDuinne

    I would like to request that Tunch set up a Facebook account. I want to friend him.

  40. 40.

    Mike Goetz

    I’m laughing imagining my grandfather reading the title of this post, the utter lack of grok he would be experiencing.

    Facebook reminds me of how my roommate once described Newsweek magazine: “That is the obituary of the avant-garde.”

  42. 42.

    jl

    I don’t like facebook either. I registered and made a page once because I had to in order to get information for an event.

    I was hit by a barrage of windows and offers and choices, many of which seemed like marketing gimmicks.

    I put in totally arbitrary self contradictory and absurd information. Periodically I get blasts from facebook that an old friend or HS or college class mate is trying to contact me.

    I never check. I do not want to know who is trying to contact a 70 year old female born in 1974, in a California town that is mistakenly located in Nebraska, who has ED issues.

  43. 43.

    trollhattan

    I couldn’t care less about the book that is a face, but given the above choice there’s something about the bottle-pink pump combination that says, “this one.”

  44. 44.

    jwb

    @gmf: The best thing about G+ is that there’s no one there. It’s proven exceptionally difficult to get my FB community to check out G+.

  45. 45.

    different church-lady

    Also: plan on regular check ups for your blood pressure: it’s only a matter of weeks before every third post starts with the words, “I was having a Facebook argument with an idiot…”

  46. 46.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    Gah, no Facebook. But I like shoes and likker, so I vote to steal the “Brands and Products” logo and make illicit love to use of it.

    ETA: Also, what @Violet said. Anything that pops up when I’m mousing awkwardly around makes me want to kill.

  47. 47.

    kindness

    I think you should use the single digit salute. if they don’t let you do that, use another nationalities similar expression/hand gesture.

    Honestly though, I have a facebook page. It’s for old high school & college friends. I don’t really use it other than communicating with people who are 3000 miles away.

  49. 49.

    Violet

    @PeakVT:

    Any guesses for the DJI close? I say 11,470.

    Ooh! It’s dropping like a rock. I’m going to say it’ll close around 11,520. I think people will jump in at the end of the day as they see a buying opportunity.

  52. 52.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    Facebook allows me to email people without having to remember their email address. Otherwise I don’t go there very often. If you do make BJ a facebook page, close the wall, and have it link here.

  55. 55.

    Ron

    I am kind of amused at the self-righteous “Facebook is TEH EVIL” out there. On a somewhat related note, is it possible to fix the BJ twitter-bot to not send each tweet out twice?

  56. 56.

    different church-lady

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred): I dunno… Facebook arguments always seem to be even stupider than other on-line arguments, from what I’ve heard of them.

    Maybe it’s because people start with the assumption that they’re “friends” and the shock of finding out otherwise adds an extra emotional component.

    And who needs more of it: how many “idiot said X on Twitter!” posts do we have now that we didn’t three years ago?

  58. 58.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred): No, not like the reply button, because it (a) doesn’t block anything when it does appear and (b) goes away when you move the mouse away from it. Lots of FB/Twitter/whatever button popups on various sites don’t.

  59. 59.

    Maude

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred):
    #46
    He will start rants on here about fb. It will be in addition to the usual fare.
    We can’t be responsible for what he does there, but I imagine his number of likes will go into negative territory after he tells one of his “friends” off.

  60. 60.

    13th Generation

    @Ron

    No one said it was evil.

    So, which are you, a grandparent or a teenage girl?

  61. 61.

    JPL

    @PeakVT: My guess is that it closes down 250. At some point someone will place big orders.
    I’m always wrong so I pray for scalias, and roberts health.

  62. 62.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @different church-lady: Huh, that’s not my experience but I don’t mess around much with people I don’t know. I’m sure there are folks who hide all my left-wing stuff but fuck em if they can’t take a joke.

  64. 64.

    FlipYrWhig

    People are SO WEIRD about Facebook. Did people huff and puff this much about the telegram? “Zounds! What use have I for a device that transmits messages at a distance? Should you want to contact me, you are welcome to attend my parlor and leave your card with my man Stillingford.”

  68. 68.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @FlipYrWhig: It’s like all the “I don’t have TV” chest pounding. Like some fucking red badge of courage. Who gives a fuck?

  70. 70.

    David in NY

    I like Facebook except for its totalitarian tendencies, see Assange, linked to above. I mean, first it gets you to label the photos you take of living people, then, without telling you, it uses face recognition software to compile those photos and add to them the information it has about those living people and, voila, everyone has a dossier, complete with photos.

    Fun and creepy at the same time.

  72. 72.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    WASHINGTON — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says there is bipartisan compromise to end the partial shutdown of the Federal Aviation Administration that has left 74,000 transportation and construction workers idled.

  73. 73.

    Paul in KY

    No Facebook for Paul. Have more important stuff to do.

    Like posting comments in here, etc.

  74. 74.

    Martin

    What of the six choices should I choose?

    The only way to win is to not play.

    Dow down 470. Expect people to suddenly care more about jobs/growth than deficit. Why are we investing our entire national attention span on DWTS rather than on things that matter?

  75. 75.

    Violet

    @FlipYrWhig:
    Nobody complained much about email, but Facebook is different because it accumulates information about you and spreads it to people, often times changing the privacy restrictions without even telling you. So you think you’ve locked down your profile, Facebook changes something and suddenly what you thought was only visible to a certain group is visible to everyone.

    Or it does something like photo recognition and auto-tagging, without telling anyone, and then when someone or a country, like, oh, Germany, complains, they say “But we’ve been doing this forever.” In the case of Germany, the court found it to be in violation of their privacy laws.

    With the telegram or email, it’s about communication. With Facebook, it’s about a corporation accumulation data on you for purposes unknown.

  76. 76.

    Belafon (formerly anonevent)

    @FlipYrWhig: I suspect this is what happened when people moved in from the countryside during the depression. “All of my neighbors just keep wanting to talk to me! That’s why I lived in the country, damn it!”

  77. 77.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @cleek: Yup. As my husband’s late grandfather used to grumble, it worked better before they fixed it.

  80. 80.

    David in NY

    @JPL:

    I’m always wrong so I pray for scalias, and roberts health.

    Unique idea. But I’m not sure prayer will do. You must assert to your wife’s boss or someone of that ilk that they are certain both to live and write opinions until they are 105 yrs. old. That might work.

  81. 81.

    Violet

    @Martin:

    Why are we investing our entire national attention span on DWTS rather than on things that matter?

    Bread and circuses. DWTS is the circus.

  84. 84.

    Martin

    @FlipYrWhig:

    People are SO WEIRD about Facebook. Did people huff and puff this much about the telegram?

    I doubt many people got fired because of something private they said to a 3rd party in a telegram. Further, telegrams were notoriously bad at harvesting your personal information.

  88. 88.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @JPL: 95 and climbing in the Classic City. We’re loading up the flowers and maters for the fundraiser. It may be good that it’s for the Nurses Clinic cuz people may be fallin out when the Packaway Handle Band gets to rippin!

  91. 91.

    13th Generation

    @Samara Morgan:

    I can’t always tell with you..do you agree with Assange, or no? I think if you care anything about privacy, one would avoid it like the plague.

  95. 95.

    FlipYrWhig

    @Violet: I see your point, but corporate data collection and tracking haven’t deterred people from using credit cards. We’re already having our habits and tendencies stored in databases and waiting to be “monetized” back at us. Personally, I’m not sure Facebook is the bridge too far.

  96. 96.

    Martin

    @Lee:

    Go Goolge+

    Requiring your actual name so they can take that metric fuckton of information they’ve collected on you – buying habits, email content, location, etc. and definitively attach it to you as a person.

    How long before Google buys Equifax or TransUnion?

  99. 99.

    Linnaeus

    @FlipYrWhig:

    People are SO WEIRD about Facebook. Did people huff and puff this much about the telegram? “Zounds! What use have I for a device that transmits messages at a distance? Should you want to contact me, you are welcome to attend my parlor and leave your card with my man Stillingford.”

    Okay, that’s pretty funny.

    Like any technology, Facebook works for some things and not as well for others. I’m not sure how a Facebook page would enhance the BJ Experience, but I wouldn’t raise hell if John created one.

  100. 100.

    David in NY

    @JPL: Yup. I think you have to assert something in public, which might lead to embarrassment if in error [“your wife’s boss” was my best bet] to make it work really well. But making an assertion on BJ that turns out to be wrong is likely to lead to loud guffaws all around, so it got you an extra 250 points on the Dow.

  102. 102.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @JPL: We’re hoping, with the 2 week re-opening of the Georgia Theater there are many choices in music. The upside is that people seem to love tomato sammies and bluegrass in these parts.

  103. 103.

    JPL

    It looks like the FAA impasse has been settled although in a strange way..

    The Senate will pass the House’s bill to fund the Federal Aviation Administration through September to end the week-and-a-half long partial shutdown of the agency, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced Thursday……………………………………..
    Under a deal Reid made with House Speaker John Boehner, the Senate will pass the House bill that includes cuts to rural flight service to airports in Nevada, West Virginia and Montana. But Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood will use his authority to waive the airports from the cuts, ending a 13 day impasse that left 4,000 FAA workers and about 70,000 construction workers out of work.

    Maybe this is the new normal…
    Must credit Steve Benin

  104. 104.

    Samara Morgan

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred):

    They let your friends learn more about you by simply clicking on your interests.

    and your stalkers.
    @13th Generation: im an otaku of Assange. I pretty much agree with everything he says.
    And i was an early adopter of facebook.
    guess why i don’t have one now?

  105. 105.

    Paris

    BallonJuice is definitely a brand. When I hear the term, I think ‘obese house cat’.

  107. 107.

    JPL

    @David in NY: If praying for Scalia’s and Roberts health ends up embarrassing me, I’m all for it although I would feel a pinch of guilt. That’s what happen when one is raised Catholic..and I really did think that the big investors would jump in to find bargains. Normally that stuff is preset. I guess they expect it to fall further.

  108. 108.

    scav

    NYT had to up its game to two simultaneous Breaking News Bars: one for the drop in shares (already it’s top and front article so ??) and for the supposed FAA deal. Baffling why I find that so hysterically funny but I do.

  110. 110.

    Jane2

    @Violet: If you don’t want FB to mess with your photos, don’t tag. As for data accumulation, I’m very happy to say that FB has determined that I live in San Francisco, even though my profile publicly states Saskatchewan, and so I get the greatest ads for stuff I’ll never use.

    And, John,, why would you want a FB page? There are compulsives who join every social media site in existence to communicate with the same people, but surely BJers are happy to stay in one place.

  115. 115.

    David in NY

    @JPL: I’m not Catholic, but I see that point. It was wrong of the other guys to pray for Harry Blackmun’s death, and God would notice if you wished Roberts and Scalia good health while crossing your fingers.

    As to the market — I expect to retire in a couple of years, so I don’t mind it being down now so I can buy some stuff more cheaply, and become rich when the economy recovers as I reach the golden years. Hah. I have stopped trying to predict it.

  116. 116.

    theresa

    @John Cole

    Forget the naysayers. I rarely talk on facebook but i “like” stories people post a lot. That’s how i kind of found out about cool sites like Balloon-Juice and Atrios, because my friend posted links to your blog all the time. Think of the multiplier effect it could have if links and blurbs to all your stories were there on facebook for easy ‘liking’. Based on the quality of writing here, i’m really sure you would gain a larger following, especially among younger people aka college or high school types. My impression of the readers of this blog are that they’re in their late 20s-50s. I see a lot of room for growth.

    Google+ is also a good idea. I’d say go with both.

    P.S.: Does Balloon Juice have a twitter account? Cuz you should.

  119. 119.

    Yevgraf

    @Samara Morgan:

    i just drove him off this blog by telling the truth.

    Even if you were right (and I wasn’t fond of Kain either, but he made his own choice), driving a poster off an internet blog is like competing in the Special Olympics – you might get a medal at the end, but you’re still a retard.

  121. 121.

    WaterGirl

    Don’t do it, Cole.

    Oh, and as someone who jumped in on your “the dow is crashing” thread a couple days ago to say you were jumping the gun a bit… well, maybe I spoke too soon!

    Edit: okay, the idea f Tunch as a public figure isn’t bad, but even that would just bring out ugly trolls, I’ll bet.

  124. 124.

    Sherean

    Organization. I manage a number of FB pages for clients and would be happy to help you set it up for free and walk you through the basics. And for all the haters, BJ on FB doesn’t have to turn into a place for more comment wars. John could use it for site news and updates so people who choose to follow can get that in their feeds. Doesn’t have to link every post and clutter your stream, in other words. Might also be a fun way to organize and reference pictures. You could have a Tunch album, one for the dogs, one for gardens, food shots, and please, will you people let me show off my little boy?

    Seriously, happy to help if you need.

  126. 126.

    RareSanity

    I am proud to say that I have never had a Facebook account, ever. If I haven’t kept in contact with a person in years, there’s probably a damn good reason for it!

    I will add my vote for Google+ though. At least at this point, there is no “push” marketing. Not to say it may not arrive, but I have to think that the folks at Google have seen what has happened at Facebook, and will, for the most part, steer clear.

    @Martin:

    Requiring your actual name so they can take that metric fuckton of information they’ve collected on you – buying habits, email content, location, etc. and definitively attach it to you as a person.

    There’s nothing about a Google account that requires you to use your real name. If you haven’t noticed by the ads presented to you when you visit this site, the internet already knows all of the information you listed.

  127. 127.

    Judas Escargot

    @Martin:

    How long before Google buys Equifax or TransUnion?

    …or gets as cozy with the US Feds as they’ve been with the Chinese authorities.

    “Don’t be evil.” Unless of course, 2 billion Chinese eyeballs are at stake, in which case the mantra becomes “why yes, of course sir, here’s that list of dissident’s email addresses we’ve kindly collected for you!”

  128. 128.

    Ash Can

    What, no “saloon brawl” category? WTF good is Facebook, then?

    And hey, wasn’t that genius Derf here crowing about buying indexes yesterday? Good thing he waited for the market to settle.

  129. 129.

    Eric S.

    I don’t see the need either but if you’re commited the icon for the artist, with the stars, kind of looks like a caricature of a drunk. That could work for this crowd.

  130. 130.

    jl

    A Balloon Juice Facebook page is OK with me, as long as it is public, so I can check it easily and make fun of it here in the comments.

    I won’t go to the trouble of checking a paper (that I keep in a safe place I can never remember) with the registration info on it before I log onto my facebook account, which I do at least once every three or four months.

    Probably the thing would work better if you put up pet pics, and prominently displayed their fan mail.

  131. 131.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @13th Generation: Just that I don’t sweat all the shit about “the man” having all kinds of info on me. It comes from the old days when I really was doing sketchy shit and assumed they were on my case. I’ve seen some of the FOI act stuff that the feds have.

  132. 132.

    Jewish Steel

    the internet already knows all of the information you listed.

    Oh, Internet. You get me.

  134. 134.

    Sentient Puddle

    @FlipYrWhig: I think what we got here is a variation on the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theorem. As far as the Facebook bitching ’round here goes, it’s about on par with other Internet bitching I see about other trivial topics such as removing LAN multiplayer support from PC video games.

  135. 135.

    jl

    @RareSanity:

    ” If you haven’t noticed by the ads presented to you when you visit this site, the internet already knows all of the information you listed. ”

    Oh my gawd! You mean what those ads say about me is true? It’s hopeless then. I’m going to get really drunk now.

    And lookee there, discount likker, sleazy credit fixer, and DUI lawyer ads, just one click away. Well, OK.

    Modern conveniences, aren’t the wonderful?

  136. 136.

    scav

    @Samara Morgan: You little two-bit twirp. Breivik is a legend in his own mind too and self-justified in his actions so it’s not as though how you see yourself matters a damn bit. What everyone else is watching is you prancing about in your coyly re-nymed underoos striking poses and congratulating yourself constantly as though being put in time-out deserved the medal of valor and the Victoria Cross.

  137. 137.

    merrinc

    @Raven (formerly stuckinred):

    Seriously. I understand not using FB but geesh, is the self-righteousness really necessary? I’m happy to have reconnected with some old friends I hadn’t talked to since high school and college and yes, I did find that some of them grew up to be wingnuts. And I’m sure that many of my FB friends have now blocked me from their feed because I just can’t resist posting links from lefty blogs.

    That said, I probably would not participate in discussion on a Balloon-Juice FB page. Some of the trolls who show up here are creepy which means the ones who are lurking are probably even worse and I don’t want them knowing anything about my RL persona. But I would friend Tunch and Lilly in a heartbeat. (Not too sure about Rosie. Sorry.)

  138. 138.

    David in NY

    @zmulls:

    I go there [on FB] to look up old friends, or friends at a distance, and engage in small performance art pieces.

    That’s roughly my position on it. I’d do a blog, but nobody would notice, and though my friend list is a tenth that of my younger son, my occasional photo essay or note on a poem I just read sparks a little conversation, like a tiny non-political BJ, and it’s fun despite my wife’s disparagement.

    But, John? Have you noticed? You have a blog already. No need for FB.

  141. 141.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    Please don’t.

    My office “strongly encouraged” me to set up a Facebook page, so everything there I post is very vanilla.

  142. 142.

    Martin

    @cleek:

    wish i had some money to invest.

    Fortunately I’ve got a little pile I’ve been waiting to buy options with. I’d need to see another 5% drop before I was confident dumping that money in against the broader market. I’m fairly confident dealing with individual stocks, but when it’s the whole market moving there’s nothing to analyze, you’re just rolling the dice and hoping it comes up your way. Corporate profits are at record highs and the market sells off big. That makes no objective sense whatsoever.

  144. 144.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @13th Generation: I’m down but I guess my point is that I don’t exactly see what form that resistance would take since I don’t think we really have any idea how and what they already have.

  145. 145.

    licensed to kill time

    I do not speak Facebook. I do not want to hear from people I have not seen since high school. There is a reason why I have not seen them. I do not want to.

    Therefore I have nothing worthwhile to add to this discussion, so naturally I had to comment. Ha.

  146. 146.

    Sherean

    I think the point of FB for businesses-and for the purpose of this conversation, I’m assuming BJ is a business of sorts-is to increase engagement (which you clearly don’t need), communicate news (which I think it would be useful for), and possibly increase readership, if that’s a goal, because of the passive marketing you get when folks like the page or share the content (all their friends then see it.)

  147. 147.

    Rosalita

    @Sherean:

    ommunicate news (which I think it would be useful for),

    you have a point here. it could be used when your marketing the next BJ calendar or need donations for another animal welfare or political cause. unless you go back and read every post on the blog, you could miss these. on FB it would be on your news feed.

    as someone who reconnected with her eighth grade crush, who is now my fiance, via FB, I’m kinda grateful for it.

  148. 148.

    13th Generation

    @Sherean:

    Well, at least you’re doing your job, marketing person, I’ll give you that. However, FB is still a privacy nightmare, not to mention a walled garden.

    Sell that shit somewhere else.

  149. 149.

    greenergood

    FB is for seeing pictures of grandchildren, nieces and nephews, etc. who you otherwise wouldn’t see because their parents don’t know how to communicate any other way. Or friends/acquaintances you’ve lost touch with but will still like to know if they’re still alive. FB for BJ-type conversation is useless – please don’t go there JC, unless you have nieces and nephews you need to impress, somehow.

  150. 150.

    jwb

    @PeakVT: This feels to me like the beginning of a real crash. I’m guessing the Dow drops another 500 tomorrow, maybe more if the panic selling really sets in. The bright side: a total market meltdown might possibly open the door to some real stimulus: but we’ll need to shed another couple of thousand points before that thought starts to circulate among the VSPs and perhaps four or five to make it a reality. If it does get to that level, even Nordstroms will find it hard keeping itself afloat selling $800 shoes, and most of the paper wealth of bobbleheads will have evaporated, perhaps to the point where they will start asking the difficult questions.

  151. 151.

    Raven (formerly stuckinred)

    @greenergood: You know that is a good point. There are people here who don’t want to see or hear from folks from their past. Maybe it’s a function of being older but I have re-connected with people that I wouldn’t have any other way.

  152. 152.

    jl

    @126 greenergood

    See, all signs point to BJ facebook for pet pics.

    BJ commenters can use it to post suggestions to Rosie and Tunch for new plots to destroy Cole.

    And state that Tunch is fat.

  153. 153.

    trollhattan

    @jwb:

    I’m noooo expert and hardly even speak the lingo, but I’ll speculate tomorrow will see some end-o-the-week bargain hunting and a slight uptick.

    Cue the 450-point plunge.

  154. 154.

    jwb

    @Martin: Unless it does make sense and you are looking in the rear view mirror. As you know, pricing is based not on current profits but on expectation for future profits.

  156. 156.

    jwb

    @trollhattan: It depends on whether panic selling or bargain hunting sentiments prevail. I don’t see much reason to be optimistic at the moment, and, even though I’m sitting on a large pile of cash right now, I’m not yet ready to get in.

  157. 157.

    Triassic Sands

    Personally, I’m not interested in Facebook. I am already in touch with several friends from the past, but Facebook wasn’t necessary to reconnect. I have had friends who wanted me to open a Facebook account so we could stay in touch that way, but all it looked like to me was a way to stay in touch by being less directly in touch. We could follow each other by simply visiting our respective pages. But the contact now wouldn’t be individualized, it would be generalized. I explained that if I have an interest in being in touch with someone, I’d like to do that directly. I have no interest in simply knowing what other people are doing, if it has zero relevance to me and/or my life.

    When I’m in direct contact with a person, I care what is going on with the family, the job, the pets, all that. But I don’t have any interest in reading about what everyone is doing — it’s seems like the equivalent of the year-end/Xmas “this is what our family did the last year card.” If we didn’t have the time or interest to have any contact in the previous year, how interested could either of us really be in each other.

    Facebook strikes me as a way to have more friends than one has time for. To me those aren’t really friends.

    So, then, why on Earth should I care if BJ gets a Facebook page? I don’t. It won’t affect me in the least. Nor will it benefit or hurt anything or anyone I care about.

  158. 158.

    satby

    Ehh, I share so many balloon-juice posts on the Book of Face that people won’t even know the difference if B-J has it’s own page. And I like FB, a lot of old exchange students who I hosted when my kids were teens have connected with me again on it. But then I like hearing from people and knowing what’s going on with them.

  159. 159.

    Sherean

    @rosalita –

    it could be used when your marketing the next BJ calendar or need donations for another animal welfare or political cause.

    Those are exactly the type of news things I had in mind.

    @13th Generation –

    Well, at least you’re doing your job, marketing person, I’ll give you that. However, FB is still a privacy nightmare, not to mention a walled garden.

    Sell that shit somewhere else.

    LOL. So I get to be the evil marketing person. How . . . unoriginal.

    To review, I did not weigh in on FB and privacy, as it has no relevance to John’s original question which was which category should he choose for his FB page. I took that to mean he was honestly confused about setting up his page, something I’ve done a few times before. What I did was suggest specific uses for BJ on FB that I thought would suit John and his readers who use FB. John’s privacy isn’t compromised on FB at all by setting up an organization page. People who are FB users can make the decision whether or not to follow BJ, factoring in any privacy considerations they may have.

  160. 160.

    PeakVT

    @jwb: I have no idea what’s going to happen tomorrow. But my sense is that the market as whole has been overpriced relative the economy because profits of so many large business have been disconnected from the US economy. The divergence may be coming to an end.

  162. 162.

    Martin

    @jwb:

    As you know, pricing is based not on current profits but on expectation for future profits.

    But there’s no such expectation driving this. It’s just “ZOMG, Italy!” Ok, if there were companies particularly exposed to Europe, that’s one thing, but there’s no selectivity on who is falling – everyone is falling, including businesses with revenues entirely contained in the US. That’s just panic selling, and companies will selectively correct later. Others will stay down.

  163. 163.

    danimal

    FWIW–I would ‘Friend’ or ‘Like’ Tunch or Lily in a minute, but I’m not sure I’d mess with a BJ page by itself.

  164. 164.

    catclub

    @Triassic Sands: “it’s seems like the equivalent of the year-end/Xmas “this is what our family did the last year card.”

    Mkae something up. Early in our marriage someone let me write the xmas letter. An innocent remark that the twins are fine (there were no children at the time) sparked substantial interest. I was not asked to write said letter again. Some people have no sense of humor.

  165. 165.

    Nutella

    @RareSanity:

    You haven’t been following #nymwars, I see. Google+ requires your full name and is not available to pseudonyms or organizations. They kill Google+ accounts (and sometimes for all other Google services) if they think your name doesn’t look real. So far they have suspended accounts for people who have one name, people with pseudonyms they’ve been using for years, people who have tried to include a nickname like this

    Deborah “Debbie” Smith

    and people who happen to have last names that can be confused with first names like

    Randolph Scott
    Scott Randolph

    They have demanded to see the driver’s license of some users to prove their name is “real” and sometimes reinstate in that case and sometimes don’t.

    So I would suggest the following:

    1. Do not try to add a group like BJ to Google+
    2. Add yourself as an individual if you want to use the name on your driver’s license and if you are able to risk the loss of all Google services. Back everything up first from Google docs, Gmail, etc.

    I’ve heard it’s very nice for people who don’t get suspended but I’m waiting until nymwars gets resolved before I make the jump.

  166. 166.

    jwb

    @Martin: Unless you believe a recession is in the offing, in which case the widespread lower prices are building in expectations for vastly lowered profits. That’s what I see happening: the market is betting that a combination of austerity in the US and Europe, and the wider problem with the Eurozone will drag the economy into a severe recession. The market, of course, has been known to miss, and in this case it’s quite possible that it’s moved too far, but if we enter recession again, it’s quite likely to be very nasty since politically at this point we seem to have no will to address the actual problem, in which case the market is in fact still substantially overpriced.

  167. 167.

    WereBear

    I was dragged into Facebook kicking and screaming, but now that I’m there I see the point. It is a social asset; instead of calling 30 relatives, you put a picture of the baby or the puppy or the kitten or the kitchen creation on Facebook, and yer done.

    It’s networking for nerds, really. And what’s wrong with that?

  169. 169.

    MazeDancer

    Joining all those who say; No. Please don’t do it.

    Facebook exists only to mine data and sell it to corporations. It is nothing but an advertising machine. Way beyond any media vehicle ever in privacy invasion. Even beyond credit card data.

    Ad biz been very, very good to me. This is my world. So it ain’t that I’m anti-advertising. I’m anti-using people’s private lives for corporate stoogery.

    Why is FaceBook growing faster than any other media vehicle – BECAUSE THEY SELL SO MUCH PRIVATE DATA. Targeting=privacy invasion. And the more targeted an ad online, the happier advertisers are. FaceBook has no limits to how far they’ll “target”.

    And millions of people are volunteering to let FaceBook make billions of dollars off their private lives.

    Please, please, please don’t support them.

  170. 170.

    Samara Morgan

    @scav:

    Breivik is a legend in his own mind too and self-justified in his actions

    lol, im hardly a white conservative christian nativist like Breivik and the teabaggers and the League of the South.
    ima muslimah.
    sorry about your mancrush– are you into freddie too?
    don’t get too attached.

    @Yevgraf: well, it was fun for me. :)
    ever one has to have a hobby.
    and watch! ima doooo eeeeet again to freddie de bore.
    :)

    and i find your hatred delicious.
    im the grrl that made reihan salam cry, and hes got 20 IQ points on either freddie or erik.

  171. 171.

    bart

    Its a democrat trap. Your heart draws you to every choice except “Brand / Product”, when in reality that is the best choice.

    Nearly all other choices are setup to make it easier for Facebook to takeover you content/page and basically steal it from you.

    Be a libertarian and choose “Brand/Product” and hold on to the valuable content you create.

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