Eye on Winer

Apparently two days is all it takes for Facebook to ferret-out highly publicized fake users and exterminate them from their network. My sources with Facebook accounts tell me that searches for “Newsjunk” and “John Newsjunk” are returning no results, while before they were returning one account with a picture of Teddy Roosevelt. More confirmation always welcome, facebookers.

What’s interesting is that this has yet to be mentioned on the NewsJunk Blog or Scripting News… both still prominently advertising the fake account.

Got an email from a sharp reader this afternoon, who pointed out the issue better than I could, so here it is:

Winer couldn’t figure out the Facebook API (probably because it’s not in XML-RPC or backed by Frontier), so to allow people to follow News Junk (which really is junk, I can’t imagine anyone wanting to follow it), he created a fake person:

http://newsjunk.wordpress.com/2008/06/18/how…

“It’s easy — we created a person for you to befriend, someone named John Newsjunk, who magically says exactly the same things that NewsJunk.com says through Twitter.”

Which is against the rules for Facebook (you have to be a real person). They made apps for exactly this reason, but Winer–king of give me an API dammit–refused to follow the rules. How many days before John Newsjunk gets deleted and Winer will go on a rampage?

Interestingly, Nicco Mele (Dave’s partner) seems to think this is a good idea:

We made it a person so that the status updates show up in your Newsfeed, like twitter. It was the easiest way to do that - I don’t think Fan pages talk to the Newsfeed like that and the API limits what you can do with an application. Individuals control the privacy settings and what shows up in the Newsfeed, but the defaults favor friends for inclusion in the Newsfeed. But if I’m wrong, let me know…! And thanks, we’ll make the profile public right now.

Which is a long way of saying “We didn’t like the rules, so we ignored them.”

Dave managed to contradict himself in his own post. He’s really making things easy for us here in 2008.

Scoble and his Facebook data:

Sure, some of the data may “belong” to his friends, like their birthday and mail address. Technically of course the data doesn’t belong to anyone, it’s data about them, and many organizations have this data.

Dave’s argument, then, is that the data doesn’t belong to anybody, so it must be Scoble’s to take?

What about the contract Scoble agreed to when he signed up for his account? We know that Dave doesn’t care about EULAs, but maybe he should.

Since “data portability” is one of Dave’s big issues and Scoble is so firmly attached to his backside 99% of the time (Should Maryam be worried?), this seems like decent fit for Ye Olde Blogge

Scoble violated a contract with a service provider and had his service interrupted. Someone call the New York Times!

I love seeing nerds get their various underwears in a bunch over stuff like this. Facebook has some rules, one of them is that you can’t scrape their pages. Scoble broke the rule (and stupidly admits to it on his blog) and now he’s throwing a tantrum because he has to face the consequences.

Listen, I want companies to give us easy access to our data as much as the next guy, but there’s a right way to do it and a wrong way. This isn’t women’s suffrage. It’s not segregation. It’s not the holocaust.

This isn’t an issue that’s so important and vital that it must be fixed immediately and through any means necessary.

This is just a bunch of adults acting like children, and using big, loaded words to defend themselves.

Here are some facts:

1. Scoble agreed to the TOS when he signed up for facebook.
2. He’s savvy. He knows that such contracts exist, how to find them, and what they usually contain.
3. He knowingly and intentionally broke the rules, fully aware of what the consequences could be.
4. He got caught, and now hopes to escape taking responsibility for his actions by making a big stink on his blog.

I don’t like the business practice of locking up user-generated content. I want it to stop. But the right way to do that is by not patronizing the companies who lock you in. Don’t use Facebook, don’t use Netflix, don’t use … well … 95% of web services out there today.

Facebook is a business that is offering you their services for zero dollars, in exchange for your agreement with a few terms and conditions. That’s the arrangement that all facebook members have agreed to, and they need to abide by it or take their ball and go home.

If Scoble stopped paying his electric bill, would all of the same people be up in arms when his lights got shut off?

It’s the same thing.

Facebook’s new feature is a little creepy, but it doesn’t really bother me (from a Facebook perspective). Here’s why: first, I would imagine that the problem is easily solved by logging out of Facebook when you’re done using it. Second, the solution is easier than people think: stop shopping at places that do this. Overstock could easily ASK YOU before they send the info to Facebook, they don’t. That’s their problem, not Facebook’s.

Dave tried to shoehorn this issue into another “I want my data” pitch, which is fine, but I think it misses the point. His second try gets to the real issue a little better, and it would be interesting to add a “comment” feature, but I don’t think that would really solve this problem.

The solution, if you think this is a problem, is to take it up with Overstock, the only company that really stands to LOSE money here. Short of a mass exodus from Facebook, this isn’t really going to hurt them. If, on the other hand, a fair number of regular Overstock customers write letters saying “I’m not going to shop with you again until this Facebook thing goes away”, that could have some impact.

Randy Holloway:

Dave Winer decided to “pop off” about Facebook today and proceeds to assert a bunch of things that either a.) aren’t true or b.) betray his ignorance of how Facebook works, which is surprising for someone who has 230 friends on the service. For instance, Dave apparently doesn’t realize that there is a huge Facebook developer platform with tons of applications, including applications that synchronize your contacts with popular e-mail programs. While he sings the praise of Twitter, why not provide some relevant feedback on another service that is actively working with developers? About five minutes of research could have at least led Dave to refine his argument. Maybe the Facebook developer API sucks? Maybe he doesn’t like the support program for developers or the potential revenue share? Or maybe it just sucks that Dave doesn’t own stock in these guys (yet)? It is hard to tell what he’s getting at with such a vague and baseless argument about openness. Maybe it is just linkbait on a slow weekend on the web. If so, he can have all 3 of my readers. P.S.- I speak crudely when it comes to Dave because I think he is an internet bully that complains a lot about what other companies are doing while he’s busy selling domain names. Weak.

Nice job, Randy, but the question “Why Dave Winer Sucks” can’t be answered adequately in a single blog post. It takes an entire weblog.

Related Posts:

• Facebook: Dave Winer Brings the Hate, Mathew Ingram
• Stop Whining Winer!, Republic of Internets
• Goodbye Metabloggers and Internet Blowhards, Randy Holloway

Stowe Boyd noted, in a post today, that Dave doesn’t get Facebook. He’s right, of course, as was noted here yesterday. Instead of considering that, just maybe, he hasn’t fully grasped what Facebook is, he responds with this:

Stowe Boyd is a creep. I’ve been wanting to say that for quite a long time. Now I have. Onward. 25 minutes ago from web

Stowe Boyd is just the kind of idiot who parades his idiocy around by saying other people “don’t get” something, when he “gets” nothing. 17 minutes ago from web

I’ve sent Dave a request that he explain, if he can, how those two updates are anything but hypocritical and asking if he thinks he owes Mr. Boyd an apology. Frankly, I doubt he replies. Why would he? He’d have to admit that yes, that was wholly inappropriate and yes, he does owe Mr. Boyd an apology. At which point he’d have to actually apologize, and we’ve seen that he doesn’t like to do that.

This 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.