The summer of Facebook - some good reads on the Facebook phenomena

Link: The summer of Facebook | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com.
Jason Calacanis comments here     Scoble comments here

Fred Wilson says: "And I share Jason's frustration with Facebook. It's just not my world. The web is my world. Blogs are my world. Flickr is my world. Twitter is my world. Facebook aggregates all of those features, wraps a social network around it, and provides a turnkey solution. It's better in many ways. But when you make it easy, you get overload. And that's what Jason is facing. And that's what I am facing..."

There may be such a thing as TOO MUCH ATTENTION - I have not made up my mind yet and have just started to get into Facebook, so... let me know what you are thinking.

 

Comments

[Rob Baum]

1.

Facebook has a compartive advantage in the social networking game, consolidating all media platforms to enable users a glut of expression. Personally, the more Facebook tries to interlink my life and entertainment favorites, the more I want to revert and maintain my private identity. For that reason, my information on Facebook has dwindled that last three years since I joined. Perhaps my

[Lola]

2.

The beauty of Facebook is that it is very user-friendly (light-weight unlikely clunky myspace which can take forever to load and crashes often; clean and simple design etc), but most of all extremely sticky. It is the only social networking site that I'm aware of that tells you, or lets you easily find out, what your friends are doing: who they are talking to, which pictures they have posted up, which parties they are attending. The Facebook mini-feed is massively addictive - and once you look at it and start clicking to see what your friends are up to, that's it - you'll be there all day!
I agree though that the privacy factor could be an issue with Facebook, because it seems to be becoming more and more 'open' - especially with these apps - and (although it's totally pscyhological) it's making it feel a bit more consumerist than just a peer-to-peer, enclosed space. I'm sure it will continue to grow, however.

[Gerd Leonhard]

3.

some good points here - thanks for your comments!