The Fall of Facebook
I stayed in on Friday night to get ready for the letter-writing workshop I hosted on Saturday, which means I was ready to jump online at 12:01 am—the exact moment when Facebook offered usernames to people. I wasn’t really afraid of someone snagging Facebook.com/SamaraOShea, but you never know. Douglas Rushkoff over at The Daily Beast seems to think this username thing is signaling the fall of the Facebook empire. This quote is from his article:
That shift, I believe, portends the beginning of the end for this social network. That may sound preposterous, but the short history of the Internet is littered with quickly fallen giants. They all appear to be permanent features of the digital landscape—Friendster, MySpace, Orkut, Napster, CompuServe—until they’re not. A minute after midnight on Saturday may just be the moment 200 million more people find themselves thrown firmly onto the Internet, and in the process make Mark Zuckerberg’s digital wading pool obsolete.
It is true of airplanes, empires, and social networks alike: What goes up, must come down. I have no doubts that FB will fall someday—I’m not sure it’s happening right now though. Then again, what do I know?
I took some fun photos of my workshop on Saturday and tried to post them, but Wordpress tells me they’re too big to upload. Ah! I don’t know how to make them smaller, and don’t have photoshop on this computer. They’re posted on my FB page (speaking of) if anyone wants to look over there. In the meantime, I’ll see what I can figure out (feel free to offer tech suggestions). I have a new digital camera and would love to post photos here more often then I do.
June 15th, 2009 at 12:17 pm
I really don’t understand why the layperson NEEDS a Facebook username. If that’s the question, maybe it is falling. Which I wouldn’t mind, I am getting tired of people I don’t have anything to do with anymore finding me and “friending” me — as if that has anything to do with getting to know me or not.
June 15th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
Agreed Stephanie. I’m not sure what I accomplished by securing my username. Knowing my tendency, however, to stick my nose up at social networks and then change my mind when I decide they can help me, I grabbed it just the same. I am getting tired of Facebook and all the design changes (for the worse).
June 16th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
I’m getting tired of Facebook too, but not necessarily because of the design changes. As I’m learning more about letter writing and keeping in touch with people, I think I’m getting tired of the superficiality of Facebook. People seem to think if we’re on each others’ friends lists, it counts as actually being friends and keeping up with each other, which I don’t agree with.
June 16th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Thanks for including me in your wonderful list! When I started my blog, I didn’t really expect to make so many friends. Oh, I suppose I hoped people — strangers — would visit my blog. That’s sort of the point of it all… But, I never really gave much thought to the idea of becoming friends with the people who would visit. Then, I received your delightful e-mail, Samara, and a friendship was born! What great fun I’m having!
June 16th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Ooops. Silly me. I posted the previous comment under the wrong topic. Please delete it, if you wish.
June 17th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
Did you figure your photo size yet? Use whatever photo editor you have and look for “resize” -I use 640×480. Or change the setting on your camera. BTW I don’t think Facebook is for me…I still have pics in my camera from Christmas I haven’t uploaded yet. I like the idea of a blog, but only after I get my writing desk uncluttered and I start writing!