professorpan wrote:I also find Facebook useful in keeping in touch with people I might not otherwise. That's what I appreciate most about it, and it is unique in that sense, which has driven its explosive growth.
And no one I know would even contemplate clicking on an ad, no matter how targeted (how many of you have ever clicked on a google ad? Probably not many). So I don't buy that it's a grand marketing scheme that will dictate or modify my consumption habits. Facebook is what you make it, if you choose to participate, and no one is pointing a gun at anyone and forcing them to sign up.
As for the "salt lick" idea, well, I have no qualms about discussing my political opinions and activities publicly, so I really don't care if the government knows I frequent DailyKos, DU, or this forum.
I agree with the Professor, Facebook is highly useful for keeping in touch with people you might not otherwise have direct physical contact with. I have especially enjoyed connecting with people from all over the U.S. that I lost touch with. Its been fun and enriching to share with other humans parts of my life and that of my family.
About the advertising aspect of this......Facebook of course wants to monetize their efforts and have an impact on your social behavior and purchasing habits. They want to analyze every click and comment you make in order to better serve their sponsors. Anybody who does not believe this is horribly ignorant. Read this article for a bit more info:
http://money.cnn.com/2009/02/16/technol ... k.fortune/
And who the hell gives a shit, frankly, if Facebook makes money off our profiles and postings? I don't give a fuck. As a matter of fact, more power to them. I wish I had come up with the idea and had publishers that I worked with that had the balls to fund the efforts of Zuckerberg and others. Facebook provides you a free service, take it as it is or don't use it. Start you own social network if you want, hell there are dozens of applications and web hosts that allow you to create your own network with your own terms of service.
About Google ads, Pan you're right, a lot of people don't click on Google's ads, but MILLIONS do and it makes Google billions of $$$$$. The model works, is solid and here to stay. Advertising is what pays the bills for almost all publishers. Those others have fund raisers on a regular basis and beg you to donate.
If you're worried about the gov't seeing your data, its too fucking late. They can tap into whatever they want, email, SMS on your mobile, your instant chats, everything is fair game under the lovely piece of fascist work called the Patriot Act. What you could do, and have fun, is fuck with Facebook and any other service by posting all kinds of crazy shit on their site. Make up stuff, post nutty pix and refer to all sorts of stuff about yourself that is outrageously nuts or untrue. At a certain point your profile will just be considered nutters or wacked, irrelevant. Again, if you don't want to be tracked at all, FALL OFF THE GRID AND STAY OFF THE GRID, FOREVER. If you want to be real clever though you learn how to blend in and go unoticed.
Its doubtful the CIA is involved with Facebook, other than they probably study it as a social behavior tool, just like marketers do everyday that try to monetize Facebook. The CIA doesn't need to build this shit, they can let the free market build cool stuff and then take advantage of it by scraping, indexing and cross referencing just like the advertising world does.
I'm constantly amazed at the ill-informed comments people make about the media, the Internet and the gov't. I love reading the threads on this bbs, but the gov't is not deploying Mockingbird operations in every major media outlet. They don't need to, the media (at least newspapers) are too lazy to dig up stuff themselves so they accept whatever garbage is tossed onto the AP wire. Most don't know that many stories are created overseas and then regurgitated back into our U.S. news diet. Its pathetic, they are lazy, underpaid, overworked etc....with some exceptions.......Clever marketing and work by silent foundations also lay the way for much propaganda, but, I digress.
My two cents.....
Peace to all of your fellow rigorous peoples.
