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[VEG]

Does it really matter what media is used as long as it is out there for people to find thats what its all about.

 

[tonybloke]

Does it really matter what media is used as long as it is out there for people to find thats what its all about.

 

[greatbritishhoney]

I think the whole point here is that no one is suggesting that Facebook should be the only method of communicating to interested parties.
The OP simply drew attention to the fact that Gwent Beekeepers now have a Facebook page in addition to all the other methods of communication they use.
As a facebook user I'm really pleased that many organistaions have a presence on there - it means that I can recieve the information in the form that I want it.
Perhaps those who are not facebook fans could be seen as trying to dictate how information should be conveyed - i.e - the way they want it.

To me it is simple - if you don't like facebook then don't use it. If you do like Facebook then use it.
The problem comes when either party starts telling the other what to do.

As for predictions about Facebook selling info or, indeed, the demise of Facebook, well - maybe, maybe not. Many people predicted that the motor car wouldn't catch on

 

[Hombre]

Interestingly the motor car caught on and prospered because of the popularity of the horse, didn't it?

 

[greatbritishhoney]

Interestingly the motor car caught on and prospered because of the popularity of the horse, didn't it?

Partly yes.
But mainly because it was an innovation that provided something that people really wanted (and in some cases needed). In the early days, the rich bought motor cars partly as status symbols. This created a desire to own one in all those who couldn't afford them.
But it was a slow-burner. It took a long time, relatively speaking, for it to get to the stage where cars were affordable and the necessary infrastructure existed to make their use really viable.
Those who saw the motor car as a fad, a plaything of the rich, underestimated the ambition of the manufacturers and the loyalty of the buyers.

 

[rae]

Facebook is a fad, like every other "life changing" thing out there. In 5 years there will be something different. Analogies to "Second Life" are very relevant - I remember sitting in presentations where we were told that this was the future, that the internet would be rolled into it, if we didn't have a presence, we would be dead. No - its dead (or nearly dead). I happen to agree that augmented and virtual reality are hugely important technologies, but virtual fantasy worlds aren't it. Remote surgery and piloting (for example) are a useful purposes for this technology.

As to the commercial aspects, they're not evil - but they have to support their multi billion dollar valuation - and to do that they have to charge you something, or take something useful from you. You may think that simple photo sharing is totally innocent (be it on Flikr or Facebook) - it isn't. A simple example, I've seen the demo and it works. You take a photo and post it. Your mates are in the foreground holding beer bottles. Great pic. Loads of other people are in the background - and on some back end server, their faces are encoded in about 700 bytes. You can then search every photo for a face, whether that face was the subject or not - in seconds. Powerful technology, god knows what it will be used for. Might be good, might be bad, might be unexpected. So (for example) if you're having dinner with someone you shouldn't be, and someone takes a photo in the restaurant, you can be found. How much would "paranoidpartners.com" pay for access to that data?

That said, there's nothing wrong with using it to advertise a BKA....

 

[greatbritishhoney]

I don't disagree with most of what you say Rae, but to say "Facebook is a fad" is really just a guess. None of us knows how long facebook will last. I've been using it for about 5 years, and there's no sign of it's imminent demise - that's quite a long fad.
The analogy with Second Life, that a lot of people mention, is not really valid in my opinion - Second Life (virtual reality platform) and Facebook (social network) are incredibly different things - the only real link being that they are computer-based.
Personally I think Mark Zuckerberg's belief that Facebook needs to constantly evolve may turn out to be it's undoing. Most of the people I know that use Facebook are quite happy with it the way it is. The thing that's irks them is the constant changes to layout and functionality etc.
IMO people will only fall away from it if it ceases to do what they want/need it to do or if something else comes along that does it better.

 

[Frisbee]

So (for example) if you're having dinner with someone you shouldn't be, and someone takes a photo in the restaurant, you can be found. How much would "paranoidpartners.com" pay for access to that data?

Someone I know was caught up in the news from the Aintree bombings (years ago) in a place he wasn't supposed to be and with someone he shouldn't have been with. You don't have to be accidentally pictured on facebook for that to happen.

I posted a photo of my honey store shelves full of jars of honey....I sold 11 that evening to facebook friends.

You can also have trackers fitted to mobiles now, you can be found anywhere anyway.

Frisbee

 

[Hombre]

That was a stroke of bad luck on a few different fronts - Aintree and the person you knew.

Good on the Facebook sales. Another picture of honey on your telephone shelf should catch you a few more sales.

Regarding the motor car. What accelerated the acceptance somewhat was the fact that your average High Street was becoming full of horse crap and horse pee was becoming a real problem.

I will see if I can't look up a reference later on, but I do believe that horse pee from waiting hackney cabs is still a problem at Euston station today. So much of it soaked into the ground there over the years.

 

[greatbritishhoney]

Regarding the motor car. What accelerated the acceptance somewhat was the fact that your average High Street was becoming full of horse crap and horse pee was becoming a real problem.

I will see if I can't look up a reference later on, but I do believe that horse pee from waiting hackney cabs is still a problem at Euston station today. So much of it soaked into the ground there over the years.

Ahh - sorry, completely misundertood your post. I get it now!

I'm going to Euston Station tomorrow - I'll let you know

 

[rae]

The analogy with Second Life, that a lot of people mention, is not really valid in my opinion - Second Life (virtual reality platform) and Facebook (social network) are incredibly different things - the only real link being that they are computer-based.

Second Life's intention was as a social networking platform - its rationale wasn't to be a VR world - it used VR as a way of getting people to interact in ways they had not done before. I am reasonably confident that Facebook will collapse in a heap because they always do: someone will come up with something better, and due to the way these things interconnect, it will be easy to scrape data from one to another. At a guess its downfall will be around commercialisation: in order to support the valuation, they will have to overtly sell the data or charge their users real money - and at that point people will realise that they can opt out of the advertising by jumping on the next new thing. I see it at work - the cool people who were the original facebookers have pretty much dropped it. We don't even bother to block it at the firewall any more - traffic has declined significantly.

Someone I know was caught up in the news from the Aintree bombings (years ago) in a place he wasn't supposed to be and with someone he shouldn't have been with. You don't have to be accidentally pictured on facebook for that to happen.

A one off, one in a trillion event. The sort of thing that human beings live with. If you have the ability to sit at a key board and say "show me all pictures on the internet that show <a persons> face" - it is rather different. It is same argument with medical records - people will argue that as phyiscal copies were left all over hospitals in the old days, what's the paranoia with security around holding them digitally. The difference is the ability to search for arbitrary people.

 

[greatbritishhoney]

I agree Rae.
However, Second Life wasn't a social network in the same way that any of us would understand it today.

Facebook's tag line on it's registration page is "It's free and it always will be", so I reckon charging users will not happen, at least in the immediate future.
I agree that the most liekly downfall will simply be that something better will come along, but there is, of course, a possibility that it will just be Facebook 2.0, if you see what I mean.
Meanwhile, as you say, I'm sure it will prove to be a good way for Gwent Beekeepers to attract new members

 

[VEG]

It will probably end up like windows re vamped every so often

 

[greatbritishhoney]

the cool people who were the original facebookers have pretty much dropped it. .

Only just noticed that quote!
You have to remember that most people's raison d'etre is not to be cool. I use facebook to play scrabble with my mum - not exactly cool I know

Having said that, much of the developing world is only really just arriving with facebook (fastest facebook growth is in places like Brazil, Indonesia, India, Mexico) - there will be plenty of "cool" people in those countries that have a fair while to go before they get bored with it.