• Menu
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Before Header

  • About Us
  • Lexicon
  • Contact Us
  • Our Store
  • ↑
  • ↓
  • ←
  • →

Balloon Juice

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Nancy smash is sick of your bullshit.

Mediocre white men think RFK Jr’s pathetic midlife crisis is inspirational. The bar is set so low for them, it’s subterranean.

Narcissists are always shocked to discover other people have agency.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

They punch you in the face and then start crying because their fist hurts.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

We can show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

Republicans want to make it harder to vote and easier for them to cheat.

Come on, man.

Not all heroes wear capes.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Incompetence, fear, or corruption? why not all three?

“Loving your country does not mean lying about its history.”

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

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

One of our two political parties is a cult whose leader admires Vladimir Putin.

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Republicans are the party of chaos and catastrophe.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Nothing says ‘pro-life’ like letting children go hungry.

Russian mouthpiece, go fuck yourself.

People are weird.

Baby steps, because the Republican Party is full of angry babies.

Mobile Menu

  • Seattle Meet-up Post
  • 2025 Activism
  • Targeted Political Fundraising
  • Donate with Venmo, Zelle & PayPal
  • Site Feedback
  • War in Ukraine
  • Submit Photos to On the Road
  • Politics
  • On The Road
  • Open Threads
  • Topics
  • COVID-19
  • Authors
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Lexicon
  • Our Store
  • Politics
  • Open Threads
  • 2025 Activism
  • Garden Chats
  • On The Road
  • Targeted Fundraising!
You are here: Home / Science & Technology / What You Need to Know About the Facebook Home, Where Old People Go to Die

What You Need to Know About the Facebook Home, Where Old People Go to Die

by @heymistermix.com|  April 5, 20139:33 am| 86 Comments

This post is in: Science & Technology

FacebookTweetEmail

Facebook introduced a new “home” application for certain Android phones that replaces the Android lock screen and other parts of Android with your Facebook timeline, pictures and messenger. I’m not a big Facebook user. As I’ve noted before, teenagers with smartphones who were heavy Facebook users are now using a variety of less monolithic social networking options (Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest, Snapchat and Instagram), each of which does something Facebook does, but better. If the generation that grew up with social networking is discarding Facebook for dis-aggregated social networking, that’s an indicator that Facebook is ultimately on the way out. I realize that a lot of older, non tech-savvy people use Facebook as their main interface to the Internet, but that just means that Facebook is the AOL of the 2010s–something people use in dwindling, not growing, numbers.

So, with those prejudices in mind, some impressions after the break.

* Home puts pictures from your Facebook feed onto your phone home screen. The demos all look great, since they contain professional-quality pictures of people parasailing. What happens when Aunt Gladys starts to post photos of kittens framed by bible verses, or when your old frat brother posts a photo of his latest bowel movement?

* Apple will never put this on an iPhone. Obviously, that’s an issue, especially in the US.

* Do people really want to have their texts routed through Facebook Messenger? I would want to see the details of how that’s implemented. If it is like iMessage, Apple’s text alternative, which is very unobtrusive, then there’s no issue. For some reason, when I think of Facebook, I think of the opposite of “unobtrusive”.

* Home runs on a few of the newest, best Android phones and on a special phone just announced for AT&T, the HTC First. Don’t buy the phone – it’s a mid-level Android device for $99 on contract. Being on contract means you’re paying for the device for the life of the contract. It’s better to pay $199 for a top-of-the-line phone than $99 for a mid-line phone considering that you’ll be paying another $500-$600 for the phone over the life of the contract, and in two years even the top-of-the-line Android smartphone will be slow. As the Bible says, in two years the First shall be Last.

* Finally, Facebook has announced that it will put ads in Home. There are no ads on the Android home screen using the stock Google software. “Oh, gee, Zuck, you mean you get to control everything my phone does and you can plaster every screen with ads? Where can I download this awesome new piece of software,” said nobody, ever.

Let’s face it: everyone’s Facebook feed is full of acquaintances as well as friends, some of whom post a torrent of dreck. Why would you want that shit, as well as ads, on the home screen of your phone, and why would you trust Facebook, the most privacy-violating motherfuckers who’ve ever walked the Internet, to take over pretty much every function your phone provides? Facebook home looks, smells and walks like a giant blue turd with a white “f” on it.

FacebookTweetEmail
Previous Post: « Open Thread
Next Post: Five Long Years I Thought You Were My Man »

Reader Interactions

86Comments

  1. 1.

    Jerzy Russian

    April 5, 2013 at 9:43 am

    I don’t know about the rest of you, but I generally hate all of my Facebook “friends”. Many of these are people from high school who turned out to be teabaggers and the like who tend to overshare. Facebook was interesting for a week or so, and I cannot imagine having it on the screen of my smartphone, assuming I even had a smartphone to begin with.

  2. 2.

    the Conster

    April 5, 2013 at 9:45 am

    I wish this post had a like button.

  3. 3.

    Omnes Omnibus

    April 5, 2013 at 9:45 am

    So… Thumbs down from you?

  4. 4.

    max

    April 5, 2013 at 9:45 am

    I realize that a lot of older, non tech-savvy people use Facebook as their main interface to the Internet, but that just means that Facebook is the AOL of the 2010s

    That is exactly what I was thinking reading Farhad Manjoo’s column about an hour ago.

    For some reason, when I think of Facebook, I think of the opposite of “unobtrusive”.

    ‘Facebook users! Quick! Install our spyware on your phone! It’s the bee’s knees!’

    Facebook home looks, smells and walks like a giant blue turd with a white “f” on it.

    ‘Microsoft Bob’.

    max
    [‘Not a big deal in the end.’]

  5. 5.

    Karmus

    April 5, 2013 at 9:46 am

    I’m an Android fan and a Facebook user, but I’m already leery of the way Facebook has wormed its way through the entire intertubes. Bully for the youngsters who have voted with their fingers for a more decentralized way–as long as they stay off of my lawn.

    ETA: @the Conster:

    I wish this post had a like button.

    Me likey.

  6. 6.

    eric

    April 5, 2013 at 9:50 am

    for this aging fuddy-duddy (48), FB is/was nice to link up with college and law school friends so that I know the big events in the lives of people i knew. I occasionally share a new pic of my daughter so that I can share her beauty with one single post rather than a bunch of emails or a bulky email list. The increasing ad presence makes it a less attractive interface. I would have NO interest in expanding FB’s presence in my electronic life. If the kids are drifting away, then i cant see a big future.

  7. 7.

    Alexandra

    April 5, 2013 at 9:50 am

    For me, Facebook is just one way to get in touch with some people and for some others, to stay in touch with family and friends on the other side of the planet. I’ve removed its app from my phone and only log into the site once every week or two, on the Mac, using an adblocker… and probably post once per month, usually with brief updates about myself, rather than sharing junk from the web.

    It’s more or less the way I also use LinkedIn. Have also given up on Twitter. Too full of narcissists, junk, stupid arguments and far too much of a distraction…

    …so despite being ‘old’, FaceBook Home isn’t for me.

    [/getoffmylawn]

  8. 8.

    Keith

    April 5, 2013 at 9:51 am

    From reading the notes on the presentation, it sounds like Facebook did a line-for-line reread of the Windows Phone announcement (“We want people to be the center of the experience, not apps!”).
    The one thing that jumped to my mind when looking at the thing, though, is that it really exposes your personal photos aggressively on the phone given how much it displays FB info. There’s something to be said for less information on the home page.
    EDIT: And I would hope the presence of ads on the base phone experience will be enough to kill Home itself.

  9. 9.

    FlyingToaster

    April 5, 2013 at 9:52 am

    Yet another reason I don’t have or want the big “f”. That, and I use an iPhone :)

    I say it again: I’d be happy to BUY a facebook account (as in pay a few bucks monthly for it) that I can control completely; otherwise, why on earth would I bother?

  10. 10.

    David in NY

    April 5, 2013 at 9:52 am

    Is it some glitch (or feature) on this that, when I sign into Facebook now on my ordinary PC, I get sent to my “messages” page instead of my old “Home” page? Jesus, won’t they just stop?

    Contrary to Jerzy, btw, I am quite happy with my limited list of “friends,” kids, relatives, and folks from college who are even more interesting than they were then (and whose politics are as good or better). And when out of politeness or error I become friends of some jerk, I find ways to make their posts not appear much. And if they get intrusive, they’re not my “friend” any more.

  11. 11.

    RSA

    April 5, 2013 at 9:54 am

    @the Conster:

    I wish this post had a like button.

    Like, with kittens.

  12. 12.

    different-church-lady

    April 5, 2013 at 9:58 am

    I can hardly wait until Mark Zukerberg’s god damned college prank on the entire universe is finally over.

  13. 13.

    negative 1

    April 5, 2013 at 10:01 am

    A big problem for facebook is the ‘signalling’ their choice of partnerships is sending out.
    iPhone/Apple is the luxury brand of smartphones. It’s positioned itself accordingly. If they’re using a middle of the line product to run out on, their product will also being showing up to teens (aka their desired market) as a middle of the line product. In the teen market, that’s like instant uncool (aka bad sales).
    Think about it this way – kids who are rich and cool use Tumblr, Twitter, Instagram, etc. The other not-so-rich and cool kids can only afford Facebook. Is this totally awful and makes you feel angry? Yes, but it’s marketing, and it works. After all – reading it that way, which one are you willing to gamble succeeds?

  14. 14.

    Va Highlander

    April 5, 2013 at 10:02 am

    Let’s face it: everyone’s Facebook feed is full of acquaintances as well as friends, some of whom post a torrent of dreck.

    Really?

    I discovered that you can delete anyone from your ‘friends’ list at will. It’s a beautiful thing and I wish there was a similar app for real life.

    On a less snarky note, facebook home sounds like crap. I leave them to it.

  15. 15.

    Cassidy

    April 5, 2013 at 10:06 am

    FB serves it’s purpose: maintaining contact with people you don’t want to spend hours on the phone with. I have no complaints.

  16. 16.

    Ed in NJ

    April 5, 2013 at 10:08 am

    I can’t think of a single person I like more or find more interesting because of their Facebook postings. And that includes close friends as well as acquaintances. The admittedly little time I spend on there is mostly laughing at or cursing at the latest narcissistic inanity someone has posted.

    In other words, the same reaction to most comments here. I guess I’m a glutton for punishment.

  17. 17.

    Raven

    April 5, 2013 at 10:11 am

    What fucking horseshit. If you don’t like it don’t use it. Fucking dorks.

  18. 18.

    cvstoner

    April 5, 2013 at 10:12 am

    I suspect that the “monolithic” approach is a holdover from the era where you went to your computer to do all your computing needs. Now, there is much more separation between the PC (or Mac) as the primary work device, and the various flavors of smart phones as the primary social device. Because of this, I agree that Facebook is going to go away as a means of aggregating social media, in lieu of the smartphone as the aggregate means of doing this.

    Of course, this could become an issue when you decide to change smartphone platforms or your smartphone craps out. So, room for the next version of Facebook?

  19. 19.

    arguingwithsignposts

    April 5, 2013 at 10:13 am

    @negative 1: I know a lot of non-rich, non-cool kids who are on Twitter and Tumblr more than FB. Also, they aren’t all white, either.

  20. 20.

    Paul in KY

    April 5, 2013 at 10:15 am

    No facebook for Paul

    Have more important time wasting activities.

  21. 21.

    Jay in Oregon

    April 5, 2013 at 10:16 am

    I would like to see a smartphone that had, as an option, a contact-centric UI for people like my mother who just want a “phone phone”.

    Instead of presenting a list of apps, of which “Phone” may be one, give the user a contact list; tapping on the phone icon next to their picture calls them, or you can swipe to get a list of options: SMS, Google Talk, message on Facebook, check their Twitter feed, invite them to play Words With Friends, whatever.

  22. 22.

    The Dangerman

    April 5, 2013 at 10:19 am

    Not an active Facebook user here, but I used it to keep up with some breaking news this week…

    …and I thought it sucked Donald Rumsfeld’s balls.

  23. 23.

    Comradde PhysioProffe

    April 5, 2013 at 10:22 am

    Fucke Faceshitte. I’d sooner hammer a thousand nails through my fucken dicke, douse the motherfucker in gasoline, and light it on fire than have anything whatsoever to do with Faceshitte, tweetering, or any of that other motherfucken “social” bullshitte.

    You wanna socialize with me motherfucker? Send me a motherfucken e-mail and we can get together and pound a few beers. Otherwise, fucke offe and die in a motherfucken fire.

  24. 24.

    mistermix

    April 5, 2013 at 10:26 am

    @negative 1: Facebook would love to be the “home” on iPhone, but iPhone is locked down in a way that Android isn’t. Android allows replacement of the software that presents the lock screen and the home screen, so Facebook could create software that replaces those functions without the consent of Google. IOS (iPhone’s operating system) does not allow replacement of the homescreen/lock screen so Facebook will have to ask Apple if it can do it.

    I very much doubt that Apple will allow them to do it, given that Apple doesn’t let anyone crap up the user experience the way Facebook Home would, and also because there is no goddam way that Apple is going to let Facebook push ads onto an Apple user’s home screen. If there’s money to be made there, Apple is going to make it, not some third-party partner.

  25. 25.

    boatboy_srq

    April 5, 2013 at 10:31 am

    @max: this is EXACTLY what I was thinking.

    Who knew a widget originally designed for rating the hot chicks at school would turn out to be so marketable as last-year’s next big thing.

  26. 26.

    gbear

    April 5, 2013 at 10:32 am

    Always being up on the latest trends, I just created a facebook account last fall, which I access from my desktop PC (my mobile phone is not smart and I don’t own a laptop). It’s been helpful for keeping in touch with my sisters, nieces and nephews and I’ve found a couple of long-lost friends. I use it as kind of a low-viewership blog, and my short list of friends tends to read and comment on my posts, so I’m enjoying it.

    I wouldn’t open a twitter account if my life depended on it.

    To me, this post is about rating methods of successfully, efficiently. and fashionably detatching ourselves from any sense of place (unless someone just feels the need to be able to call up evidence to back up their every proclamation 24/7). Everybody at any given moment is trying to be somewhere other than where they are.

    And yes, I am old.

  27. 27.

    TerryC

    April 5, 2013 at 10:32 am

    I don’t play the games and such, but I find Facebook to be very enriching. Losing it would create a huge hole in my life.

    Seriously. Among my 1,479 “friends” I have sets of friends or acquaintances from such disparate areas as disc golfers, people whose lives haven’t f2f connected to mine in a long time but with whom FB permits me to keep connected (that includes a lot of home town friends and relatives, without FB I would not even know the characters of a number of cousins and their children, who have grown up elsewhere), and there are professional acquaintances (for which I also use LinkedIn) in diverse areas like sustainability, the future of higher education, publishing, and more.

    True, I am an old guy (65) and you may say those aren’t really “friends,” but my wife and I will be traveling the West Coast for 2–3 weeks on vacation this summer, and there isn’t a place we’ll go where we do not have FB friends who will, if we wish, be happy to put us up. Even people we have not yet met f2f.

  28. 28.

    The Moar You Know

    April 5, 2013 at 10:33 am

    The youngsters next door to me use Facebook. To keep in touch with their parents and grandparents.

    Obsolete and on the way out.

  29. 29.

    SatanicPanic

    April 5, 2013 at 10:35 am

    Facebook is useful for band networking. But I scroll by just about everything else.

  30. 30.

    Ed in NJ

    April 5, 2013 at 10:39 am

    @The Moar You Know:

    And don’t forget also a way to say Happy Birthday to 20 people a day without any effort or human contact whatsoever.

  31. 31.

    SatanicPanic

    April 5, 2013 at 10:40 am

    Oh and wistfully looking at pictures of exes? Am I the only person who does that?

  32. 32.

    Cassidy

    April 5, 2013 at 10:46 am

    @Ed in NJ: Do you need a new onion? I’m assumingthe rope and belt are still good, because they made them solid back in the olden days.

  33. 33.

    LurkyLoo2

    April 5, 2013 at 10:47 am

    @the Conster: Thank you for my first belly laugh of the day

  34. 34.

    kc

    April 5, 2013 at 10:50 am

    Minor point, but doesn’t Facebook own Instagram?

  35. 35.

    LurkyLoo2

    April 5, 2013 at 10:51 am

    @Cassidy: “FB serves it’s purpose: maintaining contact with people you don’t want to spend hours on the phone with. I have no complaints.”

    LIKE

  36. 36.

    Karmus

    April 5, 2013 at 10:56 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: And Android’s openness, of course, will benefit such things as Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc. the way Apple’s closedness will not, same as with “facebook home”. To what extent developers will take all that, who knows, but the potential with a decentralized setup and an open platform is exciting.

    As to the “rich == cool” aspect the negative one raises, yes, but it can only go so far. Most kids aren’t rich and have no way of getting there, at least not while they’re still kids. But they’re still interested in doing what their friends are doing, and simply communicating with them. I think that aspect will swing more weight than “rich == cool” in the long run, in terms of numbers and mass acceptence. FWIW, IMO, my two pence.

  37. 37.

    Morzer

    April 5, 2013 at 10:58 am

    @SatanicPanic:

    I find it easier to take the heads out of the freezer.

    Still, different folks, different strokes.

  38. 38.

    eemom

    April 5, 2013 at 11:00 am

    Oh here we fucking go again….yet another “dudes, I am sooo above FB”-fest, from many of the same folks who point and snicker at the “I’m to cool to watch teevee” crowd.

    hint: if you need to tell anonymous strangers on a blog how you eschew a certain social medium, well…..

  39. 39.

    Old Dan and Little Ann

    April 5, 2013 at 11:02 am

    I like FB. I still only have a little more than 100 friends, though, due to not friending every Tom, Dick, and Douche Bag I’ve known since Kdg. I have blocked a bunch of people’s posts for a variety of reasons which is cool. Haven’t unfriended anybody, yet, but I’ve had it happen to me. An ol’ teabagging shit head I knew in college who lives in Indiana. Fuck him. He didn’t like my political posts. Ha.

  40. 40.

    Va Highlander

    April 5, 2013 at 11:05 am

    @eemom: So, how much time do you waste watching the teevee mochine?

  41. 41.

    Cassidy

    April 5, 2013 at 11:05 am

    One of the benefits about FB, I created a group for my FF class. As the class luddite photographer, I’ve been able to post all the pictures without trying to email them to everyone or screwing around with CD’s, thumb drives, etc. And later, when class is over and people started getting hired, we can exchange information.

  42. 42.

    maya

    April 5, 2013 at 11:07 am

    This item makes it pretty clear: You don’t fuck with banks. Imagine if the American taxpayers were treated the same way after Derivitivegate. (Read the second article. Re NASDAQ)

  43. 43.

    Violet

    April 5, 2013 at 11:07 am

    Saw the coverage of this on the news today and absolutely cannot figure out why anyone would want it. From the very first thing–the home page–it’s photos that you cannot control because they come from other people. So you’re in a meeting, you pull out your phone to check something, and there’s an inappropriate photo of someone in your friends group–right there for your coworkers and maybe your boss to see. Ugh. Who needs that crap?

  44. 44.

    Joel (Macho Man Randy Savage)

    April 5, 2013 at 11:08 am

    Pinterest? The one with Sammy Sosa?

    I would say that Facebook is distinct from AOL-in-the-90s for a lot of reasons, but I agree that the Facebook Phone will be a flop.

  45. 45.

    schrodinger's cat

    April 5, 2013 at 11:11 am

    I hate Force book. The Facebook intrusion on ICHC has completely changed the site and caused migration of a lot of regulars. I can’t wait till the go the way of AOL.

    I made my own ICHC website collecting all the lols that hated this as much as I id.

    Forcebook do not want

  46. 46.

    Winston Smith

    April 5, 2013 at 11:19 am

    Those who haven’t seen it might enjoy this funny parody video.

    The first feedback we go when we told people we were making a Facebook phone was ‘Stop! Don’t do it. Nobody wants that.’ But what if they do?

  47. 47.

    blondie

    April 5, 2013 at 11:35 am

    I was dithering about whether my next one will be a droid or iphone. This makes it easy.

  48. 48.

    danielx

    April 5, 2013 at 11:40 am

    Facebook home looks, smells and walks like a giant blue turd with a white “f” on it.

    It’s unhealthy to bottle up your emotions and opinions that way.

  49. 49.

    ranchandsyrup

    April 5, 2013 at 11:41 am

    Fb is a narcissism enabling machine.

  50. 50.

    Paul in KY

    April 5, 2013 at 11:42 am

    @eemom: I thought it was germane to the post.

    If you want to Facebook, no problem here.

  51. 51.

    Wayne

    April 5, 2013 at 11:43 am

    I got so tired of the crap that many of my “friends” and some family posted that I “disconnected” from facebook. Been like that for a month now and I only miss updates from my immediate family. Extended family, not at all. I also got tired of going to websites that use the FB interface to post messages. I learned you had to log out of FB to prevent the world from seeing all your posts. I didn’t trust the FB privacy settings as more than once they automatically re-set to show everything and didn’t notify me.

  52. 52.

    Roger Moore

    April 5, 2013 at 11:46 am

    @gbear:

    I wouldn’t open a twitter account if my life depended on it.

    Twitter is actually pretty cool. You can follow as many or as few people as you want, and you can use it entirely as a passive consumer without sharing anything of your own. I think in practice that it’s more of a replacement for RSS than as a serious social media platform.

  53. 53.

    blondie

    April 5, 2013 at 11:51 am

    I wouldn’t open a twitter account if my life depended on it.

    Apropos of nothing, this made me chuckle. However, I am hopped up on Dayquil.

  54. 54.

    Roger Moore

    April 5, 2013 at 11:55 am

    @blondie:

    I was dithering about whether my next one will be a droid or iphone. This makes it easy.

    Why? You only get this crap on Android if you specifically ask for it, either by installing it or getting the FB phone. Those of us who don’t want it are still free to live our lives FB free.

  55. 55.

    negative 1

    April 5, 2013 at 11:56 am

    @arguingwithsignposts: You’re missing the point. Probably everybody uses everything, in reality. The point is the image (it is marketing after all). If the aforementioned ‘cool kids’ are using Snapchat to talk to one another or send pictures of last night’s party, because they have to with iPhones, then as tastemakers everyone else will follow suit. Where does this leave FB and their app? Are rich kids (I never mentioned race BTW, I don’t know what one has to do with another) generally the go-to for teen marketers because they are largely the popular tastemakers? Yes, they are. Sucks, but it’s true. After all – name a discount teen product that was considered the market standard in the face of upmarket competition (and if you can I’ll name 20 in rebuttal).

  56. 56.

    BL

    April 5, 2013 at 11:56 am

    @blondie:

    That makes no sense. FB Home isn’t part of stock Android. It’s just something that a person could add if they wanted to. If you don’t want it then you don’t get it. Doesn’t make any difference in the droid vs. iphone debate. Though if you don’t understand that iphone is probably best for you.

  57. 57.

    DMG

    April 5, 2013 at 12:02 pm

    My wife is actually interested in this idea. She uses FB all the time for EVERYTHING, because she just isn’t that computer/phone savvy and I don’t have the patience to walk her through better alternatives for everything.

    People who regularly frequent blog comment sections are probably not the target audience, so stop thinking about whether or not YOU’d want this. Think about all those annoying people on FB that you’re complaining about who post way too much all the time. Do you think THEY might think this is a great idea?

    If so, this could work. We’ll see. Just because I’m not the biggest Facebook fan in the world that doesn’t mean it’s going to fail. Also, for people who have no idea about these things, the price point is right.

  58. 58.

    Jerzy Russian

    April 5, 2013 at 12:03 pm

    @SatanicPanic:

    Oh and wistfully looking at pictures of exes? Am I the only person who does that?

    No.

  59. 59.

    Cassidy

    April 5, 2013 at 12:11 pm

    @BL: Iphone would be better anyway. Better phone, better apps, better user interface.

  60. 60.

    schrodinger's cat

    April 5, 2013 at 12:19 pm

    @eemom: I don’t care whether or not people use Facebook. I detest their attempts to strong arm people to use the Facebook plug-in to comment on a blog.

    ETA: The site in question was ICHC and we got it changed finally, to where we could comment without going via Facebook or sharing another email account with Facebook. By the time the changes had taken place a lot of the regulars just left the site in sheer frustration and now the kitteh photos are by and and large without any comments.

  61. 61.

    BL

    April 5, 2013 at 12:44 pm

    @Cassidy: Iphone would be better anyway. Better phone, better apps, better user interface.

    I’m not taking the bait. Both platforms have their plusses and minuses. Purely personal preference at this point – I like the increased flexibility and customization I get with Android.

  62. 62.

    dcdl

    April 5, 2013 at 12:45 pm

    I don’t understand the hate on Facebook. If you don’t like don’t use it. Sounds like some people don’t actually know how to use it. You can friend who you want or not friend if you don’t. You can change privacy settings and set people in whatever groups you want with want you want to see from them. I have about two people who post literally everything. I put them in their own group. It’s good for getting info out or doing a mass invitation. You can still be on Facebook and not post anything. I know people who don’t post anything, but want to keep up with family. Without Facebook I would’ve lost contact with some good friends and family from all over the place. Facebook is what you make of it. I’ve never actually had to use Facebook to log into anything. Normally I get offered two choices with logging into some site either Facebook or email. I’ve had a friend whose husband was deployed twice. The first time she had massive depression and wouldn’t contact anyone. The second time I told her about Facebook and Skype. That helped her out tremendously with her depression for the second deployment. Make it what you will or don’t will.

    On another note, what is annoying is going to some site and having to watch a freaking advertisement before going to the actual site.

  63. 63.

    Joel

    April 5, 2013 at 12:53 pm

    There’s something a wee bit ironic about using what is essentially one form of BBS to bash another form of BBS.

  64. 64.

    cckids

    April 5, 2013 at 1:06 pm

    OK, this makes me laugh because last night I posted on FB a pic of a giant black widow spider I found on my patio, and got lots of “ick” reactions. I’m just picturing that photo showing up on everyone’s phone.

  65. 65.

    Another Halocene Human

    April 5, 2013 at 1:15 pm

    @SatanicPanic: Oh and wistfully looking at pictures of exes? Am I the only person who does that?

    My ex has an entry on Encyclopaedia Dramatica.

    Thankfully I am not on it.

  66. 66.

    Another Halocene Human

    April 5, 2013 at 1:28 pm

    What about that research that was just released about facebook users clicking on white supremacist posts for a sense of belonging or whatever the researcher said? They followed like 3000 participants and the ones who used FB the most clicked “like” on racist stuff the most.

    I disagree with the researcher (I mean, it was observational, not a controlled experiment, for one thing) in that I think you’d have to know something about whether heavy FB users have an internet addiction and what might be causing that (lousy social skills, depression, job loss), and whether those causal factors play into the anger and bigotry and lack of empathy for ‘others’, however they’re defined.

    IMO, I feel like I’m more sensitive to racial insensitivity on FB than IRL, but that may be because I have a social learning disorder and I can parse words and images very, very well thanks to my education but I trip over subtleties in F2F interaction.

    “Lotax”, the owner of SomethingAwful used to rant that the internet made niche indentification and antisocial social groups worse because it created a subcultural echo chamber (“i’m a vampire–ya, IRL!”, “I’m a furry”). Maybe it does change our notions of norms. For me it’s been in a positive way. Hanging around on liberal sites you can’t see who you’re talking to and then you find out that someone you’ve been talking to for months is a different race than you or lives on the other side of the country or lives in the country and you live in the city and proceeds to tell you about yourself for your stupid, insensitive, uninformed comments. And you learn. And your mind expands. That’s a wonderful, amazing thing that was only partially realized pre-internet. I mean, you could travel or get a pen-pal. You could do volunteer work in another community. But it’s also an equalizer that, say, volunteering isn’t. How many blind people and paraplegics have I had conversations with online as equals rather than in person where the lizard brain can’t shut up about their physical condition? How many people with severe autism can communicate with the computer who wouldn’t even be able to hold a F2F conversation with you?

    So what if there are some weird subcultures now? We had internet for a long time before Obama was preznint, and we had a white supremacist outbreak during Clinton when intert00bs was a niche thing.

    I think the internet racist is a horrible, miserable person who is taking the immoral route of puffing up their ego without concern for the impact that has on others, nursing hatred and anti-social thoughts. The internet just makes it easier for us to know who they are.

  67. 67.

    Anton Sirius

    April 5, 2013 at 1:29 pm

    @negative 1: LOL at the marketing guru

  68. 68.

    Cassidy

    April 5, 2013 at 1:33 pm

    @BL:

    I’m not taking the bait.

    Damn. lol

    All my tech nerd friends use Android and tell me how much better they [the phones] are. I always say that I will take their word for it as they are SME’s, IMO, but my Iphone does what I want it to do and that’s enough.

  69. 69.

    different-church-lady

    April 5, 2013 at 2:46 pm

    @dcdl:

    I don’t understand the hate on Facebook.

    It couldn’t have anything to do with the maybe 20% of the people I know suddenly deciding they were going to stop communicating with the world in any other fashion? Or the conversations that go, “Oh, you gotta get on Facebook if you want to network!” over the course of six months and you finally join and instead of networking it’s just endless brain farts. Or the other conversations that go, “Oh, you didn’t know about Karen’s husband’s funeral? She posted it on her Facebook page.” (True story.)

    Zukerberg built his fortune understanding psychology and how to leverage peer pressure. Hate to insult, but people have got to be dopes not to see it. And they’ve got to be even dopier to fall prey to the dark side of the thing when it was actually purpose built to exploit the dark side of human social communication.

  70. 70.

    different-church-lady

    April 5, 2013 at 2:48 pm

    @cckids:

    OK, this makes me laugh because last night I posted on FB a pic of a giant black widow spider I found on my patio, and got lots of “ick” reactions.

    Thank god there was billions of dollars of technology behind that.

  71. 71.

    eemom

    April 5, 2013 at 2:55 pm

    @different-church-lady:

    the dark side of human social communication.

    um, what in the exact fuck are you referring to here?

  72. 72.

    ? Martin

    April 5, 2013 at 2:59 pm

    I think people are missing the point.

    Lots of smartphones sold today aren’t used as smartphones. They’re used as feature phone+. A lot of people install no apps. Play no games. They just want to text/call, and occasionally google something or maybe check the weather.

    Facebook has their own texting protocol. They have their own voice/video calling protocol. They have their own notion of an address book that is synced everywhere. They have photo sharing and all that crap. A lot of people don’t want Android, they want pretty much what Facebook is offering. Now, Facebook may not be the service they want to be hooked to, but I think that conceptually this could be quite popular.

  73. 73.

    different-church-lady

    April 5, 2013 at 3:09 pm

    @eemom: The bit where we manipulate each other opaquely. The bits where we trick each other into giving us attention we haven’t earned. The bits where a billionaire tricks people into sharing bits of their lives publicly so that bullies and jerks and assholes can then use to stalk and taunt people in that same public place. The bit where people pick fights for no good reason. The bit where the noise outstrips the signal to the point where nobody has any genuine connection.

    God knows there’s plenty of other places on the internet where these things happen. FB is just the first tool we’ve created that was purpose built take advantage of all the bad shit.

  74. 74.

    WereBear

    April 5, 2013 at 3:27 pm

    @Wayne: I didn’t trust the FB privacy settings as more than once they automatically re-set to show everything and didn’t notify me.

    As I explained to my teen nephew; don’t put anything on there you don’t want the whole world to see.

    Because they will.

  75. 75.

    fuckwit

    April 5, 2013 at 3:33 pm

    AOL, MySpace, and now Facebook. So over.

  76. 76.

    CorbinDallasMultipass

    April 5, 2013 at 4:03 pm

    “in two years even the top-of-the-line Android smartphone will be slow.”

    I think you should amend this slightly to say that it will be slow or eclipsed by phones with new desirable features. The whole evolution of recent smart phones was to get them working smoothly and quickly, and ICS was a huge step towards that.

    My Galaxy Nexus is now about 1.5 years old. It does not feel slow. Maybe there are features on newer phones I would like, but speed I am not sweating.

  77. 77.

    Calouste

    April 5, 2013 at 4:06 pm

    @Jay in Oregon:

    Windows Phone has that. Phone, SMS, email, address info, Facebook, LinkedIn, twitter, all show up with your contact.

    (Disclosure: I work for Microsoft)

  78. 78.

    Jennifer

    April 5, 2013 at 4:09 pm

    @different-church-lady: I must concur.

    What bugs me the fuck out about Facebook is its (and its dedicated users’) relentless insistence that everyone of course WANTS to be connected with everyone. WTF, is this still high school where “being popular” is a really big deal? That, and the stupid faux cheerfulness that designates “friends” and “likes” and gives no other options. How about a button that allows you to show your facebook “friends” people they should AVOID? Like an “asshole” button. How about an icon showing a hand flipping a bird, which you can tag stuff with to show your disagreement/disapproval/disgust? I’m also the type of person who finds it extremely irritating to see businesses with “Like Us on Facebook” signs. Who gives a fuck? But most of all, it’s the lowing, herd mentality of the whole fricken’ enterprise.

    This is why I’ve kept threatening to start ShoutyFace (or ShoutyMouth), the ANTI-social network.

  79. 79.

    dance around in your bones

    April 5, 2013 at 4:26 pm

    @Jennifer:

    This is why I’ve kept threatening to start ShoutyFace (or ShoutyMouth), the ANTI-social network.

    Heck, I’d sign up for that.

  80. 80.

    eemom

    April 5, 2013 at 5:00 pm

    This is what I like about Facebook: people I was close to decades ago, who otherwise would be lost to me forever, are now back in my life. Certainly not to the degree they once were, but back within reach.

    Call me a gullible drooling suckah for all that is evil, but that makes me happy.

  81. 81.

    PIGL

    April 5, 2013 at 7:05 pm

    @eemom: one thing we agree on. Facebook is very useful to me for exactly those reasons. Almost everyone of my 250 “friends” were actual real life friends at one time. ¸

    People that are really annoying? Block them.
    People that post too much stuff? Dial them back until you are mostly seeing things you are interested in from people you care about at least somewhat.

    I get not liking it, or not needing it, but I don’t get the crazy hateon from people who are lazy and inept to learn how to use very obvious and easy features. And apparently still in need of adult supervision, as for as posting decisions goes.

    Hint:

    Don’t want mom to see it?¸
    Don’t want your boss to see it?
    Don’t want the authorities to see it?

    Don’t post it.

  82. 82.

    Ron

    April 5, 2013 at 8:56 pm

    @blondie: how’s that? I love my android phone, use facebook a fair bit, but I’d poke hot needles in my eyes before using facebook home. nobody is going to MAKE you use that dreck on your android phone.

  83. 83.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    April 5, 2013 at 9:03 pm

    @Cassidy: iPhone doesn’t fit in the watch pocket of my Levi’s. Case closed.

    Of course I had to buy a used Motorola Droid 2 to get one narrow enough, that had a physical keyboard, but now I’m set. Hope this sucker doesn’t break!

  84. 84.

    Brother Shotgun of Sweet Reason

    April 5, 2013 at 9:08 pm

    @eemom: eemom Says:

    This is what I like about Facebook: people I was close to decades ago, who otherwise would be lost to me forever, are now back in my life.

    Yeah, this happened for me too. Frickin’ amazing.

  85. 85.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    April 5, 2013 at 9:50 pm

    @schrodinger’s cat:

    I don’t care whether or not people use Facebook. I detest their attempts to strong arm people to use the Facebook plug-in to comment on a blog.

    In the defense of many who have moved to that, it’s sold to them as a spam deterrent. And maintaining an independent log in system can be frustrating as hell.

    That said, I was dragged into FB, kicking and screaming, when a close friend decided to use it to create a private support group during her custody battle. Many of the people she wanted in the group were already on FB, so it was the simplest solution.

    I use Chrome to access FB, and that’s the only thing I use Chrome for. I have never trusted FB, and I don’t want them tracking me all over the net. As far as Firefox is concerned, I don’t have a FB account at all, so it can’t automatically log me in anywhere.

  86. 86.

    marshall

    April 6, 2013 at 1:33 am

    Facebook got enough critical mass to be the go-to site for connecting with old friends / acquaintances. If Aunt Gladys want to find Jack, the kid she had a crush on in 9th grade, and hasn’t seen since he moved to Minnesota in 10th grade, Facebook is a good place to start.

    This is not dependent on superior search technology (Facebook’s is very crude), just a critical mass of members. That is not a very high barrier to entry; it can be duplicated by another service, and once you have found the buddies you haven’t seen in X years, you don’t need to do it again. (My guess is that young enough people will never lose the ability to connect to people. They will still lose friends as they mature, but will always be able to get back to them if they need or want to.)

    Services without a high barrier to entry are ripe for being overthrown.

Comments are closed.

Primary Sidebar

On The Road - PaulB - Olympic Peninsula: Lake Quinault Loop Drive 5
Image by PaulB (5/19/25)

Recent Comments

  • schrodingers_cat on Squishable Tuesday Morning Open Thread (May 20, 2025 @ 8:35am)
  • schrodingers_cat on Squishable Tuesday Morning Open Thread (May 20, 2025 @ 8:30am)
  • Matt McIrvin on Squishable Tuesday Morning Open Thread (May 20, 2025 @ 8:30am)
  • Dorothy A. Winsor on Squishable Tuesday Morning Open Thread (May 20, 2025 @ 8:28am)
  • Dorothy A. Winsor on Squishable Tuesday Morning Open Thread (May 20, 2025 @ 8:26am)

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Balloon Juice Posts

View by Topic
View by Author
View by Month & Year
View by Past Author

Featuring

Medium Cool
Artists in Our Midst
Authors in Our Midst
War in Ukraine
Donate to Razom for Ukraine

🎈Keep Balloon Juice Ad Free

Become a Balloon Juice Patreon
Donate with Venmo, Zelle or PayPal

Meetups

Upcoming Ohio Meetup May 17
5/11 Post about the May 17 Ohio Meetup

Calling All Jackals

Site Feedback
Nominate a Rotating Tag
Submit Photos to On the Road
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Links)
Balloon Juice Anniversary (All Posts)
Fix Nyms with Apostrophes

Hands Off! – Denver, San Diego & Austin

Social Media

Balloon Juice
WaterGirl
TaMara
John Cole
DougJ (aka NYT Pitchbot)
Betty Cracker
Tom Levenson
David Anderson
Major Major Major Major
DougJ NYT Pitchbot
mistermix

Keeping Track

Legal Challenges (Lawfare)
Republicans Fleeing Town Halls (TPM)
21 Letters (to Borrow or Steal)
Search Donations from a Brand

PA Supreme Court At Risk

Donate

Site Footer

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

  • Facebook
  • RSS
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • Comment Policy
  • Our Authors
  • Blogroll
  • Our Artists
  • Privacy Policy

Copyright © 2025 Dev Balloon Juice · All Rights Reserved · Powered by BizBudding Inc

Share this ArticleLike this article? Email it to a friend!

Email sent!