Musings of a sexual camel…

More and more frequently I am receiving e-mails with the following subject matter;

“Mr X has written on your funwall, to send a response, click here”

Immediately I’m reaching for the delete button. You see it’s not that I don’t like to get e-mails from people, I love to get e-mails from people, its just, well - Facebook.

There I’ve said it, am I the only Facebook loather in the world? (haven’t reached the hate stage in my relationship yet). The problem is simple - I don’t understand Facebook’s place in the world. In face I’m irritated by it, am I turning into a grumpy old man?

Maybe I’m annoyed at myself, I am after all a member myself (more out of constant nagging than anything else). Note to self, have more will power to say “no!”

I spend a lot of time on the internet I read a lot, research a lot and use the tools available to me to communicate with other people. I find Facebook frustrating however because I don’t feel it gives me anything in return for my efforts, to me its an unbalanced equation. On the one side you have annoying little web apps (built using Facebook APIs) which do nothing but waste time, whilst on the other you have a huge corporation (yes it is a corporation) which WILL make heaps of cash from the crop of information it “harvests” from its users. No, I’m not anti-capitilist or anti-corporate, but its all about give and take. Facebook is all take.

Legal Andrew has summed this up perfectly. Have you read the Facebook Terms of Service (ToS)? I know not many people do but you should, check his blog for the juicy highlights, it makes interesting reading believe me.

I do consume other services of a similar nature, but I get something out of them;

• MySpace - awesome, great community builder, very useful for checking out new bands or looking info on existing ones
• Messenger (and other IM’s) great, good for communicating with the other side of the world, fast and efficient
• There are more but I think you get the point

Bottom line, I don’t mind having info recorded about me, my activities etc if I feel I’m getting something out of the relationship.

Understand?

You don’t do you.

Alright, now to reply to that funwall message.

UPDATE: Today I heard that Facebook costs businesses an estimated $5billion a year from lost work hours! Aside from the cost there is a potential security risk to businesses from all this activity, not to mention the risk to your own job security! Check the article from the Sydney Morning Herald here.