Something Else Dave Doesn’t Get: Facebook
October 14th, 2007 by EyeOnWinerThis blog would take much less time if we simply compiled a list of things that Dave does “get”, but we’d also be awfully bored.
Apparently all Facebook is to Dave is an address book.
Another topic Scoble and I talked about today was Facebook. I said I don’t like Facebook, never have, and I finally figured out why.
It’s another one of those user generated content things, only this time I’m building up an address book that I can look at, but can only do things with it that Facebook lets me do.
Why exactly do I need Facebook to get inbetween me and my address book?
I’m not a huge Facebook fan myself, but to imply that it’s nothing more than a proprietary address book, well, that’s a special kind of ignorant. I wonder if Dave’s spent more than 10 minutes really looking around or if this is just something he’s decided to be contrary about for publicity.
October 14th, 2007 at 5:14 am
I loved how he and Scoble want to pay $10 a month to eliminate nerd up (and completely defeat the purpose of) Twitter with his payload nonsense. I also enjoyed how he assumes no one uses Twitter’s SMS feature just because he doesn’t.
October 14th, 2007 at 6:23 am
Regarding Facebook, I do believe I know where he’s coming from. He’s talking about how FB layers a lot of stuff on top of your social network (aka address book) and how that stuff (relationship details, pics etc) can’t be exported out of FB.
For FB of course, this is a feature, not a bug. Making it easier to migrate off FB to another app/social network makes no sense to them.
On another note, I’m flabbergasted by his scheme to derail Twitter. It’s just another instance of Winer not getting mobile at all.
October 14th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
No, I do understand his larger point, but calling Facebook an address book is like saying that a car is just a really complicated way to move a carburetor from place to place.
October 14th, 2007 at 3:48 pm
From the post:
I mean, I understand why they want me to tell them everyone I know, but how about letting me download a copy to my computer, so I can back it up, use it on my iPhone
I don’t suppose Dave’s actually tried iphone.facebook.com, which will actually let him use it as an online addressbook, complete with “Dial ____” buttons for ease of address bookery.
Can’t argue with the backup thing, though. I mean, if Twitter didn’t let me back up all my comments about “what I’m doing”, I wouldn’t use that service either.
October 14th, 2007 at 7:05 pm
Dave’s problem with Twitter is that he’s never really “gotten it”
I personally don’t have a problem with him using it as a blog since his blog is mostly just one line posts anyway. But what Twitter was originally supposed to be was a way to keep people informed on what you are doing. But since Dave’s brain can only hold so many concepts at one time (two from what I can tell, Blogging and RSS) he just turned it into another blogging platform.
This line especially amused me…
“Pictures are a very easy and vital way to express what you’re doing right now.”
No, they aren’t. Again, pictures aren’t necessarily a bad thing but they don’t at all fit into how a lot of people use Twitter (and how the service was originally envisioned)
Dave saying the SMS feature is useless is like someone who uses a hammer only to pry things open saying all hammer manufacturers should get rid of the flat, hammering surface on the other end of the hammer because no one ever uses it.