[nerdfiles]

Hold on. First off, you should have deleted your account years ago.

"Connecting with friends" is a terrible point to make: e-mail has been around for decades. However, such a point does intersect with my main goal for making this post. People are lazy. Now programmers are saying it, and now everyone else will realize just how true it is, and being lazy has consequences.

So, we've had e-mail for decades. Why won't people use it? Instead of wasted texting plans, etc.? You could always keep up with your friends and family through e-mail. But the interfaces were either ugly, inconvenient, or disorganized. It's beyond me that an {interface} should have to tell me to contact my mother or that an {interface} should compel me to "keep up with old friends."

This. Is. Absurd.

[Luddite Rant:] Sorry, but pick up the damn phone and call them. (Or click "compose" and just {try} to type out something meaningful.)

I believe this finely leads into my next point: Not many of you have anything Gricean (http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/dravling/grice.html) to say. What [would] you say in an e-mail to a friend? --

People don't have much to say anyway (and for my personal stake in it, it's because they're not reading anything interesting), and Facebook isn't going to change that. That, I think, is the point behind http://weknowwhatyouredoing.com/. There's nothing-to-hide, and conversely, there's nothing-to-show either. FB is an enabler of oversharing, and it's allowing people to empty out too much without taking in substantive content.

I'm going to say it engenders bad cognitive hygiene.

[ahelwer]

How is it this same tired argument pops up every time quitting Facebook is discussed? The sweet spot for Facebook is acquaintances. People you would not usually email or call, and only hear about once in a while through the grapevine. It maintains familiarity. Subbed in a co-ed game of ultimate frisbee and met some people? Add them on Facebook.

[nerdfiles]

I think it's a "tired argument" because its not easily defeated. _Why_ wouldn't you "usually" e-mail or call? Why? Why would you? (This seems like Churchill's point: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.") E-mail didn't fail, this is why we're seeing a resurgence of it (http://three.sentenc.es/, 501 developers against e-mail bombardment, minimalism over e-mail organization, etc.). Why has FB suddenly become "the best we've got" when all people seem to argue for is particular features that could be replaced. FB is a mash-up; this has nothing to do with "maintainability of social grace." It's a mash-up; and consumers like mash-ups.

Seriously: _Why?_ Why do we need we need a "social framework" that captures the rest of our human-interaction? We do we need a "social baseline"? Why do we need a system to maintain familiarity for us? I'm not even sure I understand the value of the point you've made, even if it is a good argument. _I_ maintain familiarity; Facebook is a tool for supporting what I do naturally.

> It maintains familiarity.

I'm not sure what this means. How does it do this? By making an API function do... What?

> Subbed in a co-ed game of ultimate frisbee and met some people? Add them on Facebook.

Add their e-mails? Organize your labels.

The sweet spot for _who_? I'm telling others to drop it because you can achieve those goals through other interfaces; you're telling me that others shouldn't set their goals too high (acquaintances). My point still stands. E-mail [certainly] would make more sense within the "acquaintances" counterpoint.

Facebook is a set of opinions as to how one should manage (or maintain?) one's social life. Isn't it clear that if one rejects that System, one might be expected to provide an alternative, or possibly simpler, solution? The argument cannot really be a surprise to you, surely.

[EDIT:] I'm _struggling_ to understand the point about "maintaining" familiarity. I really do wish to understand it, as I feel it touches the heart of the matter. However, such an idea may require a break-down.

I think the issue of "discovery" is an important one, but what actually am I discovering in this digital world? A portfolio? Or a person? To argue that FB's sweet spot is about acquaintances from the evidence that it's a good tallying tool, or a notes tool, for friends made in the physical social world, I think, is a bad argument, or at least it's not very compelling. I think such an argument only re-confirms the "tired argument" I initially presented.

[ahelwer]

So, you're at an ultimate frisbee game. Everyone introduces themselves. You can then go home and find them on Facebook based on their name and mutual friends (since you probably know some other people on the team). No asking for contact info and all the associated social baggage. There's one benefit.

Now, once you're friends with them, Facebook passively (or actively, with minor communication such as comments) maintains familiarity. Basically what this means is if you happen to run into them six months later, it isn't like meeting them for the first time. Facebook can by no means fully maintain this sort of low-level relationship indefinitely. However, I've found it's very effective at increasing the half-life of such things.

Facebook automates the maintenance of my social network. That is valuable.

[e12e]

I disagree. A lot of the sharing I do on facebook are "neat" things -- things that would drive most of my friends crazy if I put them in an email -- but stuff that those who want to see "what I'm up to" can check out from time to time. If anyone emailed me all the top stuff on y-combinator I'd be upset -- I have no problem skimming the list and looking at what I find interesting.

I could use a blog + microblog for a similar way of sharing -- but most people aren't so interested in what I'm doing that they'll go and read some random links I've posted -- but when they have the time and are in the mood to have a look -- facebook works. Additionally I can post semi-private things on facebook -- because it has an authorization infrastructure in place -- I know most of my friends wouldn't be interested in or able to remember a set of credentials just to have a look at my microblog.

Personally I'd like to use a "homepage" (remember those?) for the same things -- and I probably will move to that eventually -- but a lot of people I'd like to keep in touch with simply don't have a reasonable way to "watch" 100s of activity streams from different blogs, microblogs, rss feeds etc. I realize many people use twitter for a similar reason.

My main problem with both of those are the same: the have broken a perfectly good distributed architecture by centralizing it -- and then worked really hard to make it scale again. Still working on a design for something less centralized, but still workable for those that aren't interested in technology.

The Diaspora "pod" concept seems likely to be the way to go -- in essence it's what all "micro communties" such as phpbb boards for teams/groups/clans etc are doing today. I'm not sure if it is feasible to make something "general" that also works -- but it'll be interesting to try. For authentication and authorization openid/google login and optional "local" registration combined with "friend lists"/"circles" should do the trick.

There still remains the problem of discovery -- "friend me on facebook" is usually quite simple if you remember the first name, and know someone in common -- "go to my blog, log in and say hi!" -- doesn't quite work. I do agree "send me an email" works better than both those -- it's a shame a lot of people simply aren't using email much these days.