Now that I've been using Facebook for a few months, I think I finally know what it really is: a set of collected blogs. Being Facebook Friends consists of making a reciprocal committment to view each others' blogs - nothing more. Your Facebook home page is a merging of all the blogs you've committed to view. There is a certain amount of privacy gained by declaring that your blog is viewable only by people who you know, but because of the breadth of the Facebook definition of Friend, I don't believe that privacy is useful (see My Parents Joined Facebook).
Knowing this, Facebook could be nicely replaced by a full blogging site, or a network of cooperating blogs, that enabled display of multiple blogs simultaneously - no big technical feat.
08 June 2009
28 February 2009
Where are the innovative futurists?
I just finished reading a few pieces on Microsoft's Craig Mundie and, while I have respect for anyone daring enough to call themselves a seer, I'm disappointed in the "if only we could synthesize reality" scenarios that so many futurists promote.
The fact is, life (which is all about relationships) isn't about realism - literalism - it's about abstraction: how to manipulate the physical world in order to communicate abstract thoughts and feelings among people and across time.
Doh! I just now realized that it's absurd to look to engineers (like Mundie) to define the future - Engineering is about reducing existing ideas to practice - it's the artists that create the visions and the languages that drive the future. Thinking about that, I looked up "futurist" and found that "futurism" was an art movement in the early 1900's (what kind of an education did I get, that missed that?) . So when somebody describes themselves as a "futurist", they are harkening back to an artistic movement dedicated to speed, modernism, violence, and misogyny.
The fact is, life (which is all about relationships) isn't about realism - literalism - it's about abstraction: how to manipulate the physical world in order to communicate abstract thoughts and feelings among people and across time.
Doh! I just now realized that it's absurd to look to engineers (like Mundie) to define the future - Engineering is about reducing existing ideas to practice - it's the artists that create the visions and the languages that drive the future. Thinking about that, I looked up "futurist" and found that "futurism" was an art movement in the early 1900's (what kind of an education did I get, that missed that?) . So when somebody describes themselves as a "futurist", they are harkening back to an artistic movement dedicated to speed, modernism, violence, and misogyny.
17 January 2009
Possible Social Networks
Thinking about Facebook, I've scribbled a short list of things I could see doing with it, if it could separate identities:
Home and Hearth - keeping in touch with close family members and very close friends: people who are welcome to enter our house any time they like, whether or not we're there.
A custom-built small town - Everybody I know in life. Sort of a small-scale blog or forum.
Wright's Taliesin - a community of colleagues, sharing a creative life around a broad topic (for example, computing and community)
Workshop - an amateur community, learning by doing. For example, a poetry critique group or a singing group.
Algonquin club - being witty with witty people.
Doctor's hours - being available when a fire happens at work, whenever it happens.
I can't imagine mashing all these groups into one undifferentiated lump of 'Friends'.
Home and Hearth - keeping in touch with close family members and very close friends: people who are welcome to enter our house any time they like, whether or not we're there.
A custom-built small town - Everybody I know in life. Sort of a small-scale blog or forum.
Wright's Taliesin - a community of colleagues, sharing a creative life around a broad topic (for example, computing and community)
Workshop - an amateur community, learning by doing. For example, a poetry critique group or a singing group.
Algonquin club - being witty with witty people.
Doctor's hours - being available when a fire happens at work, whenever it happens.
I can't imagine mashing all these groups into one undifferentiated lump of 'Friends'.
Facebook creeps me out
I've made the plunge and signed up for Facebook, and added a few friends from home and work. Now that I've used the app for a few days, I find I'm kinda creeped out by it: its concepts of relationship are soooooooo naive.
For example: On Facebook, I have one, big bowl of "Friends"; in reality, I have an immediate family, an extended family, close friends, distant friends, colleagues in industry, co-workers, people at shops I frequent...the list goes on and on. There are family members I'm very close with, family members I keep in some touch with, family members I see at holidays, family members I don't speak with, etc. - and that's just Family (ok, admittedly, family is a often a complicated thing).
Perhaps I compartmentalize more than is healthy, but I like to keep my work somewhat separated from my non-work career (to fulfill work confidentiality), and my work significantly separated from my family and friends (because my company is ultimately beholden to the stockholders; not to me). Similarly my set of friends and family members aren't one big blob of people.
I think it comes back to identity: Facebook treats each person as if they have a single, uniform identity/role, yet people have multiple, overlapping roles and identities in life. Taken to the extreme, why should I share with my dry cleaner the same details about my life as I share my wife? - it's absurd.
For example: On Facebook, I have one, big bowl of "Friends"; in reality, I have an immediate family, an extended family, close friends, distant friends, colleagues in industry, co-workers, people at shops I frequent...the list goes on and on. There are family members I'm very close with, family members I keep in some touch with, family members I see at holidays, family members I don't speak with, etc. - and that's just Family (ok, admittedly, family is a often a complicated thing).
Perhaps I compartmentalize more than is healthy, but I like to keep my work somewhat separated from my non-work career (to fulfill work confidentiality), and my work significantly separated from my family and friends (because my company is ultimately beholden to the stockholders; not to me). Similarly my set of friends and family members aren't one big blob of people.
I think it comes back to identity: Facebook treats each person as if they have a single, uniform identity/role, yet people have multiple, overlapping roles and identities in life. Taken to the extreme, why should I share with my dry cleaner the same details about my life as I share my wife? - it's absurd.
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