So long, Bebo. I won't miss you -- maybe now I can get to know my friends again in person. (From yesterday's Evening Herald)
By Susan Daly
Thursday April 08 2010
IT might sound a bit harsh to call a five-year-old a has-been. In the whizzy world of the internet though, half a decade is a long time. Bebo, born in 2005, has reached its sell-by date.
Technology giant AOL paid megabucks -- 850 million of them -- to acquire the social networking website two years ago. Now it has announced that it will be trying to sell its out-of-favour purchase. If all else fails, it will simply shut it down.
Wow. That's pretty brutal.
If Bebo were a boyband that had been jilted by its record label, we'd be bracing ourselves for the pictures of the cute one getting fat and the one with the talent starting to write hits for other, younger, starlets. In technology, as in the pop industry, when you're hot, you're white-hot. When you're not, you're stone-cold. There is no sentimentality and things get old real quickly.
It's so long Hannah Montana and hello Justin Bieber. (If you don't know who that is yet, ask a passing eight-year-old).
It might be worth bringing up the cautionary tale of Bebo the next time someone tells you that you absolutely must get on board the next big thing in technology. Beware anything that relies on mob rule to stay viable. The mob shifts its loyalty elsewhere and you're left alone, the only kid in your virtual playground.
Bebo needed to keep attracting new members. Every year saw a new launch -- Bebo Music, Bebo Books, Bebo Groups -- all promising to add to the experience of being part of the website's following.
Bless them, they tried so hard, and it's not entirely Bebo's fault. It's ours, we the public at www.fickle.com. As soon as something better or newer comes along, we're off.
I'm not pointing fingers at anyone but myself here. I opened a Bebo profile in 2005 when a friend sent an 'invitation' to everyone in her email address book. As long as the site remains open, it's probably still up there, listing my mid-Noughties likes (Britney Spears circa Toxic) and dislikes (White Chicks, the film).
Then the heat moved to MySpace, and so did I. I didn't even manage to get as far as specifying my gender on a profile there before Facebook caught my eye. Now I find myself drifting away from that too. I think the fatal bullet was when my aunt asked if I would be her friend on 'Myface'.
Now it's all about the quick buzz of updating my status 20 times a day on Twitter and instant messaging 'Twitpals'.
I'm enjoying it right now -- I work from home, so to me it's like access to an instant office canteen -- but I notice some of my old 'colleagues' have been checking in less frequently as of late. The novelty has worn off.
We didn't always need this constant change of scenery.
Why is it that for years we were happy enough with the eight-track tape and a clunky Walkman as the cutting-edge way to make music mobile?
Now, if your MP3 player is bigger than your fingernail, you're a Luddite.
It also seems that the easier that communication has become, the more difficult it has been to remain satisfied by it for even the briefest period of time.
Scientists have started to identify a strain of this perennial state of dissatisfaction. They're calling it adult ADHD.
The roots of this syndrome are behavioural. The more we are surrounded by distractions, the more we crave them.
I heard a word this week that made me step away from my netbook. 'Lapglancing': the act of watching TV while simultaneously tapping away at a laptop on your knee.
Remember what the word 'Bebo' actually stands for? 'Blog Early, Blog Often'. Now, isn't that an imperious call to the keyboard? It says something about the imperative, demanding nature of these 'social' sites. It implies that if you're not in, you can't win. And if you're not winning, then by definition, you're a loser.
It should be a comfort to know that these bits of gadgetry are ephemeral.
Bebo was the cool kid yesterday, but an outcast today.
It might remind us that we are lucky enough to still have real, live friends who are pretty much always where we last left them -- at the other end of the phone. (Okay, make the call on your iPhone if you must).
I think I'll invite some pals over for an evening of old-fashioned 'video-sharing', ie: watch a movie together, sitting on the same sofa in the same room.
Some things will never go out of fashion.
FIRST PUBLISHED HERE: http://www.herald.ie/opinion/susan-daly-so-long-bebo-i-wont-miss-you-maybe-now-i-can-get-to-know-my-friends-again-in-person-2129936.html
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Facebook. Show all posts
Friday, April 9, 2010
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Pokey-mon
http://www.independent.ie/lifestyle/why-were-all-signing--up-to-be-poked-1891156.html
From the Irish Independent's Review section, Saturday September 19 2009
Why we're all signing up to be poked,
By Susan Daly
Now that the social-networking website Facebook is about to achieve one million users in Ireland, it means that one in four of us are chronicling our lives, loves and sandwich fillings in the internet village.
Colm Long, Facebook's head of online operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, made the announcement this week alongside news that Facebook has now sailed past the 300-million user mark globally and its finances are finally in the black.
"We would love to do something to mark reaching one million Irish users and we expect that to happen in the next few weeks," said Long. One wonders what a party of Facebook users would look like: hundreds of people hunched over their laptops sending a 'friend' request to the profile of the cute girl sitting right beside them?
That, of course, is a ridiculous scenario. Facebook now attracts a much wider demographic of users than the geeky college students it was limited to five years ago. A current advertisement running on radio for sliced bread has aul' Mr Brennan horrified at the thought of young wans 'poking' each other on Facebook. (There is a setting on the site where you can send a virtual 'poke' to a friend to say hello.)
Mr Brennan's horror is disingenuous. The 35-plus age group is one of the fastest growing on the site these days. This relates to my personal experience: in the past few months, I have been befriended by three aunts, one uncle and my boyfriend's parents. I have now seen enough pictures of their holiday frolics to want to poke my eyes out.
One thing is for certain: Facebook has revolutionised social communication. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It has tapped into the very basic human need for company and interaction. Perhaps the most popular feature of Facebook is its 'News Feed', where the activities and status updates of all a user's friends are streamed in a live feed on the user's home page. They can take in, at a glance, what is happening in their social circle at that very moment in time.
Microblogging sites like Twitter have picked up on the popularity of this kind of instant community message board. Social scientists even have a term for this constant online contact, "ambient awareness". For the most part, the information an individual picks up from this incessant online chatter might seem banal. But Irish Twitter and Facebook pages were the first port of call for many of the eyewitnesses to this week's crash between a Luas tram and a Dublin bus. Within minutes of it happening, photographs of the scene were being shared on Twitter along with advice to avoid O'Connell Street.
The microblogging element of Facebook and the sites that followed its lead can lead to networking possibilities that were hitherto inconceivable for most people.
To give an example, I sent out a message on my Facebook and Twitter profiles two weeks ago asking for recommendations on the purchase of a Netbook. Several IT experts posted replies and within an hour, I had made an informed purchase. I, in return, have given media advice, job leads and movie and book recommendations to online contacts. It's like outsourcing your life to a group of consultants.
Yet we muddled along pretty happily without Facebook for pretty much all of human history. Its critics complain that it has created a demand where there previously was none. The decision to 'opt out' of the site becomes a difficult one when you realise that you will no longer be able to keep an eye on what information or photographs are being posted of you on contacts' profiles. It is almost necessary to remain on the site strictly to monitor your online reputation.
Social psychologists have spoken up about the actual value of 'friends' on Facebook, some of whom a user might not see for years. The time spent connecting with these ephemeral contacts online eats into time spent on face-to-face socialising.
Anthropologist Robin Dunbar deduced 10 years ago that the human brain only has room for 150 personal connections.
As Facebook users find themselves making friends with old schoolmates, innumerable work colleagues and other people who would otherwise naturally fade out of their lives, the 'Dunbar number' would suggest that this activity risks diluting the quality of their relationships.
The time it takes to keep all these connections intact can lead to addictive behavioural habits.
Many employers have blocked Facebook from their internet server because they fear it diminishes workers' productivity. In April of this year, a study from Ohio State University made a link between lower grades and students who are heavy Facebook users.
With technology becoming more and more of a participatory activity, it may be that fewer of us in the future will feel able to opt out for fear of being left out of the loop. And where is the fun in that?
From the Irish Independent's Review section, Saturday September 19 2009
Why we're all signing up to be poked,
By Susan Daly
Now that the social-networking website Facebook is about to achieve one million users in Ireland, it means that one in four of us are chronicling our lives, loves and sandwich fillings in the internet village.
Colm Long, Facebook's head of online operations in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, made the announcement this week alongside news that Facebook has now sailed past the 300-million user mark globally and its finances are finally in the black.
"We would love to do something to mark reaching one million Irish users and we expect that to happen in the next few weeks," said Long. One wonders what a party of Facebook users would look like: hundreds of people hunched over their laptops sending a 'friend' request to the profile of the cute girl sitting right beside them?
That, of course, is a ridiculous scenario. Facebook now attracts a much wider demographic of users than the geeky college students it was limited to five years ago. A current advertisement running on radio for sliced bread has aul' Mr Brennan horrified at the thought of young wans 'poking' each other on Facebook. (There is a setting on the site where you can send a virtual 'poke' to a friend to say hello.)
Mr Brennan's horror is disingenuous. The 35-plus age group is one of the fastest growing on the site these days. This relates to my personal experience: in the past few months, I have been befriended by three aunts, one uncle and my boyfriend's parents. I have now seen enough pictures of their holiday frolics to want to poke my eyes out.
One thing is for certain: Facebook has revolutionised social communication. This is not necessarily a bad thing. It has tapped into the very basic human need for company and interaction. Perhaps the most popular feature of Facebook is its 'News Feed', where the activities and status updates of all a user's friends are streamed in a live feed on the user's home page. They can take in, at a glance, what is happening in their social circle at that very moment in time.
Microblogging sites like Twitter have picked up on the popularity of this kind of instant community message board. Social scientists even have a term for this constant online contact, "ambient awareness". For the most part, the information an individual picks up from this incessant online chatter might seem banal. But Irish Twitter and Facebook pages were the first port of call for many of the eyewitnesses to this week's crash between a Luas tram and a Dublin bus. Within minutes of it happening, photographs of the scene were being shared on Twitter along with advice to avoid O'Connell Street.
The microblogging element of Facebook and the sites that followed its lead can lead to networking possibilities that were hitherto inconceivable for most people.
To give an example, I sent out a message on my Facebook and Twitter profiles two weeks ago asking for recommendations on the purchase of a Netbook. Several IT experts posted replies and within an hour, I had made an informed purchase. I, in return, have given media advice, job leads and movie and book recommendations to online contacts. It's like outsourcing your life to a group of consultants.
Yet we muddled along pretty happily without Facebook for pretty much all of human history. Its critics complain that it has created a demand where there previously was none. The decision to 'opt out' of the site becomes a difficult one when you realise that you will no longer be able to keep an eye on what information or photographs are being posted of you on contacts' profiles. It is almost necessary to remain on the site strictly to monitor your online reputation.
Social psychologists have spoken up about the actual value of 'friends' on Facebook, some of whom a user might not see for years. The time spent connecting with these ephemeral contacts online eats into time spent on face-to-face socialising.
Anthropologist Robin Dunbar deduced 10 years ago that the human brain only has room for 150 personal connections.
As Facebook users find themselves making friends with old schoolmates, innumerable work colleagues and other people who would otherwise naturally fade out of their lives, the 'Dunbar number' would suggest that this activity risks diluting the quality of their relationships.
The time it takes to keep all these connections intact can lead to addictive behavioural habits.
Many employers have blocked Facebook from their internet server because they fear it diminishes workers' productivity. In April of this year, a study from Ohio State University made a link between lower grades and students who are heavy Facebook users.
With technology becoming more and more of a participatory activity, it may be that fewer of us in the future will feel able to opt out for fear of being left out of the loop. And where is the fun in that?
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