So I did my first facebook purge today, so if you're reading this from a link on my facebook, congratulations! I like you enough to want to know you a little while longer. About 450 friends dropped done to 241. It was hard at first, but eventually the names started to blur and it became faster to banish this one time friends and acquaintances from my conscious forever. And while I certainly did this purge for a reason, I still find facebook a useful tool for keeping in touch with college friends. In fact, I was looking at one of my groomsmen's old facebook walls (he's not on facebook anymore, but you know how facebook is like the mafia-once you're in you can never leave) and one of his friends made a good statement about facebook's role in our lives. Since I agree with this stranger completely, I'll just post his comment in lieu of actual original content today:
what's with all the fads and hysterias surrounding facebook? First everyone had to get on to facebook. Then everyone had to refuse to get onto facebook ('cause I'm hip, that's why). Then everyone that refused to get onto facebook got onto facebook. Now all the original people are leaving facebook because of "privacy" issues (maybe not Nick, he's got plenty of other issues to be worried about!). What's gonna happen? Unless your posting seriously jeopardizing material (which you should be smart enough not to do in the first place), are people worried that the big corporations are going to find out that I really dig the new Lady Gaga hit? Oh noes, personalized marketing is coming to give me products tailored to my interests! How horrible! Skynet must be impending. Privacy on facebook is like privacy in real life: a nice thought, but increasingly requiring a deep revision in our very concept of private/public information. I think all this hoopoolah about privacy on facebook stems from some deep, pervasive narcissism that the information that we exhibit about ourselves--which is so important, by the way--should be entirely under our control. That was never the case, and there's no radical decline in the matter here. Just another case of facebook hysteria. Some of it may be legitimate, but mass exodus and large displays of "Hey facebook, I don't dig you anymore" miss the mark.
Facebook, anyway, provides the most similar online experience to face-to-face interaction. Instead of, e.g., blogs which are largely one-way streams of large blocks of information (like a long speech with a short Q&A afterwards--viz. the comments), facebook provides a vehicle for short bursts of spontaneous exchanges and displays of information that can be more or less serious, and more or less robust. I think this is one of the best chances for maintaining a social network in the absence of continuous face-to-face presence, for it constantly affirms the little micro-communications that are the foundation of informal social relationships. This isn't to say that facebook is better than a blog. They serve very different functions for communication. But I do think that facebook is significantly more egalitarian and conducive to maintaining an actual social network.
/rant
There is a very good point that he nearly misses. Take Google, for example, a huge input into their revenue, *the* reason for funding the search engine is advertisement.
ReplyDeleteThese advertisements are driven entirely by clicks. A click means a user is interested in something, therefore, maybe this user will also like these X number of products or services like the one this user clicked on, so lets advertise, and advertise...and advertise. If you ever see anything about "google analytics" when you're loading a page, that's Google tracking where you're going, what you clicked on, gathering data. Eventually, they'll have a large enough amount of information that they'll have a model to draw off of, and that's when it gets interesting.
The interesting part - besides the cyberpunk references - is the user's relationship with Google. To a user, Google is a service, a fantastic way to grab relevant information from a metric shit-ton of other information, some relevant, mostly pr0n. To Google, the advertiser is the client, the thing that buys a product from the seller, Google, and in return gets, clicks, and eventually (extra) revenue. So what is the user? A product. Or, at least, all previous data recorded about a user account associated with Google.
Facebook privacy, as I see it, is a lot more tangible than "where you go on the 'net", so that's why it gets more attention, in my eyes at least. Facebook doesn't execute its advertising nearly as well, or as obfuscated as Google does.
"So what is the user? A product."
ReplyDeleteAnd you're surprised by this? We've been getting mentally and physically used by advertising companies since modernity started in the early 20th century, and one could argue that we've been getting used by "The Man" all throughout history, from Industrial Revolution factory owners, medieval vassals using their peasants, Romans using their slaves, etc. etc.
I want to write an article about our role as consumers under our modern capitalist run society. I wanted to write it for Christmas since it involves holiday over-commercialization a lot, but I guess I'll save it for V-Day. (Oh shit I better start writing). Long story short, we're at a point in time where our abuse is so obfuscated (to steal your word) under modern bureaucracy and mind-games, that we can actually use some of it to our advantage. Again, I'll go into detail at a later point, but in reference to modern internet advertising techniques, companies that have products I want can find me when they wouldn't have before, and if I want I can patron them if it will make me happy. Due to facebook advertising I was able to go on an awesome road-trip to see Tim and Eric Awesome Show Live with Nick Montgomery and Annie Markham senior year, buy Buffy-themed Jones soda for Kim's last birthday, and something else awesome that I forgot. I wouldn't have seen those ads and had those life experiences without those intrusive advertising techniques.
It's clearly not perfect yet though. Do you know what the fuck is up with Hulu's ad experience? It always asks you if the ad is relevant to you and saves it to your info, yet it doesn't seem to alter which ads I see. I think a system like that would be great! Sure, show me all the movie trailers and food advertisements you want, you might even inspire me to spend money on you when I wouldn't have before! Just stop showing me car commercials.... I don't want/need a fucking car man....