[clavalle]

Limiting technology to refer only to things not built on top of other technology is defining the term too narrowly.

Facebook is a tool designed and built to solve a set of problems. If that is not technology in a core sense, I don't know what is.

[lutusp]

> Facebook is a tool designed and built to solve a set of problems. If that is not technology in a core sense, I don't know what is.

Facebook's purpose (sell social connections) and its method (networking) are distinct and separate. Facebook could accomplish its objectives in any number of ways -- networking is coincidental to the company's purpose.

[clavalle]

So that means Facebook as an application is not technology?

A helicopter and an airplane both fly people through the sky in a controlled fashion but they use different methods. Does that make either one less of a technology than the other?

I just don't see how your argument makes any sense. It almost seems like a non sequitur.

[lutusp]

> So that means Facebook as an application is not technology?

Facebook isn't an application, it's a company that makes money by creating and maintaining a social forum. Facebook may use computer software "applications" to further this end, but one mustn't confuse the method with the goal, especially when one considers that the same goal could be achieved using different methods.

> I just don't see how your argument makes any sense.

Yes, I can see that. You also think Facebook is an application, like Excel. It isn't, it's a company.

[clavalle]

Good Lord, man.

Facebook is both. Which is to say that the word Facebook can be used in reference to a corporation or the application that kicked off that corporation (and still forms the core of that corporation's method).

I thought it was obvious from the context which we were discussing. I'll try to make it less ambiguous in the future.