Address booking
Having met new people in my Spanish class, I'm finding myself rehashing my stance on Facebook again. It's amazing how often college students stop dead in their tracks when they hear that someone doesn't have an account on Facebook, or doesn't use the site in the same way they do.
As I've said before: I don't use Facebook because I don't like the idea of a centralized server maintaining my relationships to people. I do, however, have an account so that people can find me in a medium that they're comfortable with.
What I really want is decentralized address book software. It could have a web-based frontend. Other servers could ping mine to let mine know that there are updates to my friends' contact information. It could run an LDAP server so my email software can auto-complete email addresses. I could synchronize my Palm Pilot with it. It could integrate with an OpenID server, or a Jabber server for chat, or an Asterisk server for VoIP calls. I could run a finger server for old skool grins and giggles. It could build an OPML blogroll of my friends' websites so feed readers could automatically subscribe when my friends create new websites or change accounts. I could maybe even start something with my friends. Best of all, the whole thing would require very little input from me, as my friends using the same software (or perhaps a service that runs the software for them) would only have to update their own information, which could then be aggregated to everyone else automatically.
(I am aware that I would have to input, say, my friends' websites initially. However, elroy.com/befriend is a lot less information to input than Elroy's name, address, phone number, etc. I also realize that I could be very wrong about how long setup and maintenance times might take.)
Regardless, that's not how things work, and it might not ever work that way. I may have 500 friends and one new phone number, but I have to notify all 500 of them, and they have to manually update everything. What an incredible waste of energy. What an uninteresting waste of time.
Am I going to start using Facebook? No. I maintain my own website, and there are feeds available so that people can easily aggregate the content to someplace they're comfortable and familiar with. Facebook does not offer me any significant value.
Update: It appears that something very similar to what I envision has already been developed. Unfortunately, it's still not decentralized, but it's a start. The service is called Plaxo.
14 comments:
See, with Facebook you can update your phone number and all 500 friends will see the change next time they look at your profile. :P
Kurt, sorry to break this to you, but there are people out there that literally have nothing better to do than cruise Facebook and look at every detail of their friends. They have tons of spare time and very little to use it on, in this case it makes Facebook an invaluable tool for them.
@Caleb - I disapprove of using Facebook as an address book; it is read-only with a web-only interface. What outside integration opportunities are there? There are many, many cool things to do with contact information, but Facebook does not offer any access besides a boring web frontend. No thanks.
@David - I know, right? While I was writing that blog entry, the girl at the computer in front of mine spent an hour browsing photos. People amaze me (and I'm sure some of them would be stunned by the things I do on computers as well).
Not sure what you mean by read-only...
And if you think Facebook is only a "boring web frontend" with no possibilities for anything else, you obviously do not know about Facebook applications... I think there's some potential there, someone just needs to create something other than all the silly things like "Food fight", etc.
I am offended that you would suggest that I "obviously do not know about Facebook applications" as if you can somehow enlighten me on the issue. Don't even bring that fanboy garbage here. Facebook's applications are worthless for the integration I want with the applications I use.
Facebook doesn't give developers access to the truly interesting information, and the information that they give you access to is not guaranteed to be formatted consistently.
I'll leave it as an exercise for you to read up on it at the relevant Facebook API page.
Disregarding all of that, please remember that I will always want decentralized solutions. That's why I support Pavatar over Gravatar, Jabber over all other chat networks, and OpenID over most everything else.
Well it sure sounded like you didn't know about them. Maybe they won't integrate with your applications, but they do allow for integration with other websites and such. I was pointing them out because you claimed Facebook was a "boring web frontend".
If you want something that will integrate exactly how you want it to, with all the applications you want it to, you're going to have to come up with it yourself...
What exactly are you calling "interesting information"?
I have nothing constructive to say in reply. Even my most terse reply, "L2rtfm", is too antagonistic. You're content with Facebook? Fine.
Rawr.
Caleb: The applications that Facebook provides are overrated, incomplete, mostly useless, and in most comparable ways, a ripoff of Myspace.
One of the reasons why I like/liked Facebook more than Myspace is because it was simple, it was uncluttered. There was no way to customize (Read: Screw up) your profile page. I would log in and have a few people that poked me, and maybe a message or two that I would respond to. But now I have the most random invites to completely useless applications like "Zombies", "Where I have been", "Movies", "Ilike", etc. Not only that but I see people adding and removing these apparently useless applications every day. As far as I can tell, all the applications are good for is clogging up the tubes, and who would want that?
I think that I am more with Kurt on this one. Unfortunately, until something better and more used comes along, I will be using Facebook. Just like I did with Myspace until Facebook opened up to everyone.
David: Aye, many of the applications are completely useless, but a few of them do provide some nice/fun/entertaining features.
Fortunately, Facebook allows you to "collapse" any application you wish, and it will remember that preference across everyone's profiles. So if I decide I don't want to see the "Zombies" application, all I have to do is visit [random person]'s profile, click the "collapse" button next to the app, and now whenever I go to someone's profile and they have the "Zombies" application, it will be collapsed.
I agree that the application invites are annoying, but Facebook appears to have done something about that, or else the novelty has worn off...
So then we should begin hashing out the opportunity of building a Facebook alternative. First we have to figure out how people use Facebook. From there we have to understand which features keep people using it.
My most common uses of Facebook are just checking for anything new, particularly anything sent to me including wall posts, notes, private messages, pokes, invitations, etc. Nothing that could not be done by IM or email or cell phone, and if these features were removed from Facebook, I would be totally unaffected. Why do people even choose this method of sending messages? Is it just a matter of convenience? Perhaps writing on a wall is just the easiest way to contact someone on a whim as soon as Facebook reminds you of some friend you've not thought of in a long time?
That's it. I think I see how Facebook seems to create long-term dependence in its users. We can, at any time, just look through a collage of old friends' faces to be reminded of everyone we have known. Ever. And one day you just might decide to contact them again. We reserve that freedom and save it for later. Until then, it takes no effort on your part to make sure the person isn't lost to you forever. In this way we feel we can sustain many more loose friendships by using Facebook than otherwise possible. This is an addictively comforting feeling, whether or not it is based in reality. I personally feel uncomfortable with the idea of abandoning Facebook now, in spite of the valid drawbacks raised here. Having moved so far away from all my friends, it now feels necessary to me to have a social networking tool as effective as Facebook.
This doesn't mean I'm not up to the challenge. But how do we create something that offers value to our friends immediately?
Allan, whomever you may be, I completely agree with you. One of the reasons why I use it is because the ease of adding/viewing/tagging photos. Also, it is a great place to meet all the hot chicks, who would not want that?
David, whoever you may be, it sounds like you actually disagree with me. My thought was that Facebook is mostly addictive by providing a comforting feeling of friendship preservation, not for any of its functional features like adding photos or meeting hot chicks (as if that ever happens on there).
I think it would be more telling if any one of us actually had any clue what Facebook usage actually is. Regardless, I'm not thinking that Facebook should be replaced. I'm talking about a simple address book that many, many other things could tie into.
Remember that many services that focus on one particular sector that Facebook incorporates offer feeds. There shouldn't be any reason why another piece of software utilizing this address book software couldn't grab all of your friends' Flickr feeds, Del.icio.us feeds, and YouTube feeds and easily provide you with updates (or, again, output an OPML file that your feed reader can subscribe to).
Mugshot is doing something interesting, and I recommend investigating it. It isn't the complete package, but it goes farther in tying together disparate services than most anything else I've seen.
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