Facebook mania in Turkey
Our advertising lecturer Yeşim Ulusu is doing "applied research on Facebook".
I was pretty sure that with the start of classes, Facebook membership rates would get a boost in Turkey. That happened really and now some columnists write about a Facebook mania in Turkey. My initial excitement is gone. I don't spend much time any more although i am always online there. Well, someone told me one can display oneself as offline, too but i haven't tried it yet.
Even the most hostile ones on social networking tools are now becoming members. Well, Facebook offers more than many other social networking tools. It is not particularly a dating site. If that was the case, we, lecturers would at least assume a disguised user name there (!). It seems to offer something for every net literate so that Facebook threatens not only networking sites but many web 2.0 sites. At least Facebook could achive the confluence of formal and informal networking and with gradually more advanced tools, one will be able manage "friends" at different levels. (But of course there is always the danger of messing up relations as some people are having difficulties in their work environments. Check out the round up below. )
A huge round up can also be found in my social bookmarks: http://del.icio.us/sakaerka/facebook
I am always excited with new web tools, so does the Facebook but i try to be more balanced. It is good to discover that with this Facebook frenzy you can get in touch many people from your past or near past. Well, an editor accepted my friendship request although he never replied my mails and I could never interview him. The girls i like in high school (but could never ask for a date) are now friends with me although some are married and I still don't feel like asking the single ones :p [in fact, to a shocking suprise for many, i never started a relation thru an online acquintance although i am such a net junky] I am now friend with my best buddy in secondary school; we haven't seen each other since then except being in the same restaurant a few months ago and we still did not try to meet.
However, I am particularly using it to update my status. Here I started a game: I am declaring how many words I have in my dissertation draft. In order to declare I write more (!). I could never like many photo sharing sites (even Flickr) so I use FAcebook photos intensively. That tagging function is great. "Groups" does not work very productively, but to follow up trends, it is an great tool. As my former student Eren Demir told me newspapers are using the photos of airplane crash victims in Isparta that were uploaded in Facebook. Well, one can see the rise and fall of anti AKP groups or many other stuff. There is also the "events" function which seems to be very useful. Well, i will create an event for my blog party and the first invitation will be sent out thru that event tool. Anyway, i have spent too much time in this Sunday afternoon now I will join Nurdan to do some reading and in the mean time you enjoy reading this post:)
by Hans A.H.C. de Wit
Oh...before I forget to mention the most important news of today, I married Idil, and she said yes, and now we are drinking champagne..)
Facebook's Beacon Shines Annoying Light on Consumer Purchases
Facebook's supposedly innovative new advertising feature called Beacon is quickly turning into a disaster for the popular social network.
Facebook Retreats on Online Tracking (really?)
Nrbelex writes "Facebook is reining in some aspects of a controversial new advertising program, after users became extremely upset and threatened various 'protests' over possible privacy infringement issues. 'Late yesterday the company made an important change, saying that it would not send messages about users' Internet activities without getting explicit approval each time ... Facebook executives say the people who are complaining are a marginal minority. With time, Facebook says, users will accept Beacon, which Facebook views as an extension of the type of book and movie recommendations that members routinely volunteer on their profile pages.'"
Facebook Beacon Drama Continues
by Nick O'Neill
It has been an eventful few days in the world of Facebook Beacon. According to a study by Computer Associates, Facebook Beacon is transferring information from third-party sites after you have logged off from the Facebook site. While this information is not displayed in your newsfeed, Facebook could store the data and use it to profile your shopping behavior online. I have reached out to Facebook and am awaiting a response.
‘Facebook’ mania sweeps Turkey
by KRISTINA KAMP
One morning when Onur Çelik (24) opened his email account he found a quite unusual message: “Hey Onur, I found you! I was the one who sat next to you in primary school; you were always hitting my head!” -- scary!
Sex Drives Facebook Users, Sort Of
by Dave Ambrose
I think Nick hit on an excellent point about the circuitous nature of the media over on The Social Times. Let’s be honest, it’s a relatively slow news week for all things Facebook, so why not throw redundant information in the pot, stir it a few times and then recreate it with a spiffy title. Perhaps it will hit Techmeme?
Sex on Facebook
by Nick O'Neill
For most people, Facebook means keeping in touch with your friends. For others it means keeping in touch with your family and professional contacts as well. According to the Turskish Daily News, Facebook has also turned into a place for finding people for sexual encounters. Given that the writer of the article is based in Turkey, they received many more results with groups, events and profiles with explicit content. It appears that within my networks, Facebook has done a relatively good job with filtering out explicit content.
Google is Secretly Mining Facebook Data
by Nick O'Neill
The Harmony Guy has posted an interesting article highlighting a vulnerability in the Compare People application on Facebook. This is significant given that the application has close to 700,000 people and close to 10 million people have added the application. This means that Google technically has information about almost 20% of all application users. So what information do they have exactly? According to the Harmony Guy:
The Top 25 Facebook Applications
by Nick O'Neill
I have spent the past few months filtering through thousands of applications to find the best ones. I have added and removed thousands of applications but only a few still remain. After going through all the applications and figuring out which applications I will return to, I have narrowed down the list to the following 25 applications. For organizational purposes I have broken the list into application categories.
Where Do You Spend Your Time on Facebook?
by Nick O'Neill
On Tuesday, Tim O’Reilly posted an article that discussed new Compete statistics about Facebook usage. While out of date, the numbers still proved to be interesting. In contrast to the diagram (displayed below) which shows 14 million users using Facebook applications, Facebook published their own numbers two weeks ago that showed that over 33 million users have installed applications. I’m not sure who’s numbers are accurate but I would lean toward Facebook’s.
check out the original size here.
The Web vs. Facebook
by Nick O'Neill
Yesterday at the Web 2.0 summit, Jeff Huber of Google stated that “over 100,000 sites have already embedded Google Gadgets, with 63 of them attracting more than one million active users a week.” Additionally, in taking a shot against Facebook, Huber said, “a lot that you have heard here is about platforms and who is going to win. That is Paleolithic thinking. The Web has already won. The web is the Platform. So let’s go build the programmable Web.”
Googlers Convert to Facebookism
by Nick O'Neill
Yesterday, news that Benjamin Link one of the early Google developers was heading for Facebook. He’s not the only one leaving Google. Alex Chitu has posted that he left for Facebook back in July and loves working there. In spreading the good news, Alex says, “Facebook really is That company. Which company? That one. That company that shows up once in a very long while — the Google of yesterday, the Microsoft of long ago.”
The Democrats' Facebook Primary
by E. J. Dionne Jr.
The contours of the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination are set, and it is not a battle about "issues." The confrontations the top Democrats are staging around policy questions are designed to use their rather small differences to highlight larger contrasts in experience, temperament and character.
Facebook as Refusal of Work?
A November 17th article in the Brisbane Times about workplace productivity, "All the same to new white-collar intelligentsia", in fact brings to light an interesting connection between one of the Italian autonomists' favored form of protests - refusal of work - and Facebook, the popular social networking site.
Rules for protecting privacy in Facebook
by Harry Chen
I value my online privacy. Recently I joined Facebook, an online social networking application. While I enjoy using it to social with my friends in different corners of the world, but also I’m concerned about my privacy in Facebook. In this blog I will summarize some general rules that Facebook users can adopt to protect their online privacy.
Reasons to use Facebook
by Harry Chen
Facebook is a social networking application. Unless you are a teen who tries to show off your 100+ social networks or a business person who tries to profit from the latest social networking trend, Facebook seems to be a waste of time. After playing with the service for two days, I conclude that while excessive use of Facebook can be a tremendous drain on time, but if the usage time is managed well, Facebook is a valuable tool for maintaining healthy social networks that otherwise is difficult to do in the physical world.
Social Networking continues to develop on mobile
by EditorsWeblog
Many people now are using social networking sites on cell phones rather than on their computers. "Almost everyone I know has a Sidekick or a BlackBerry, and I can only imagine how much they use it to check their MySpace/Facebook messages,"
Your Ex-CoWorkers Will Kill Facebook
by Zonk
Random BedHead Ed writes "Cory Doctorow writes about the downside of social networking on the Information Week site, with a focus on Facebook. While he starts with some minor but insightful quibbles, he quickly moves to a critique of the core of social networking:
Turning E-Mail into a Social Network
by samzenpus
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Saul Hansell at the NY Times has an interesting article on his technology blog about his conversations with executives at Yahoo and Google about how they plan to turn their e-mail systems and personalized home page services into social networks. Web-based e-mail systems already contain much of what Facebook calls the social graph — the connections between people.
Over-50s Invade the Social Networking Scene
by CowboyNeal
An anonymous reader writes "The Telegraph newspaper reports that over-50s are invading sites like Facebook and MySpace in massive numbers. A recent study showed that nearly one third of Facebook users are aged between 35 and 54, and that this group also made up 41 percent of MySpace users. "Because the mind of an over-50 is likely superior to that of a drink-addled undergrad, at first there was uncertainty about whether older users would find the Facebook-led social-networking phenomena attractive." Looks like dad just turned up to the party."
Why Facebook Won’t Be Uber-Network
by Dan Gillmor
Cory Doctorow has a very smart analysis in Information Week about why he doesn’t fear Facebook taking over the world. Quote:
Every “social networking service” has had this problem and every user I’ve spoken to has been frustrated by it. I think that’s why these services are so volatile: why we’re so willing to flee from Friendster and into MySpace’s loving arms; from MySpace to Facebook. It’s socially awkward to refuse to add someone to your friends list — but removing someone from your friend-list is practically a declaration of war. The least-awkward way to get back to a friends list with nothing but friends on it is to reboot: create a new identity on a new system and send out some invites (of course, chances are at least one of those invites will go to someone who’ll groan and wonder why we’re dumb enough to think that we’re pals).
Social Networking and Beat Reporting
by Dan Gillmor
Jay Rosen asks, Beat Reporting With a Social Network: Can it Work?
Are there network effects in beat reporting? Across the US, a dozen reporters (with beats) are going to try to find out—simultaneously. This will improve their odds of succeeding.
How Do You Spend Time on Facebook?
by Nick O'Neill
Chances are high that if you read this blog, you probably spend a fair amount of time on Facebook. I know I do! Hugh Macleod has posted about Facebook consciously sacrificing design improvements for the purpose of extending the amount of time users spend on Facebook. I have to disagree with Hugh on this one. Is Facebook really trying to keep you on their site longer by spending hours rejecting application invites? Doubt it.
Two Keys to Online Social Networks
Fred has a good post up on Unit Structures responding to MoveOn.org's recent e-mail barrage about Facebook and privacy. Despite its purpose of defending the intelligence of the body of Facebook users, Fred hits on two key points that people would do well to learn when considering developments in online social network, in any case.
"The brand entity of Facebook is governmental; the only time one interacts with Facebook as entity is when they are being controlled or punished. Facebook as brand represents surveillance and domination."
Getting to Not Know You
by Felipe Schrieberg
Last month Facebook unveiled Beacon, a program that alerts users to their friends' online purchases -- and ignited a brushfire of protest. After 50,000 users signed a petition against having their purchases automatically broadcast, the company amended Beacon's design. I can't help wondering, though: Is this a joke? People are protesting Facebook's violation of privacy?
Social networks: after privacy, beyond friendship, Mark Vernon
by Mark Vernon
The personal quandaries thrown up by social-networking sites seem to be escalating by the day. What do you do when, say, a work colleague - whom you see across the office but with whom you never exchange more than courteous pleasantries - asks you to become a friend on Facebook? Your policy to date has been that your profile is strictly for real friends only. But can you risk the icy stares should you refuse him and click "ignore"?
Big Brother has added you as a friend
What is the social networking etiquette on the Internet these days? Every few days I receive emails announcing that someone -- a close friend, a vague acquaintance or a person I don’t know from Adam -- wants to add me to his/her friends’ list.
Facebook Kemalism
by HALUK ŞAHİN, RADİKAL
Several people who made their mark on the 20th century such as Lenin, Hitler, Mao, Roosevelt, Churchill, Nasser and Nkrumah have had their legacies fade. Nowadays they could be considered lamps that no longer glimmer.
Millions warned of dangers of social networking sites but Facebook continues its march.
Essex CC, Facebook and all politics being local
by fhbrussels
After reading the story in every publication we looked at this week (well, PA Newsletter and PR Week to be precise), we thought it was about time we gave a nod towards the folks at Essex County Council in the UK. Their comms team have enlisted the power of social networking site Facebook in their quest to oppose the closure of the county’s post offices. We can only wish the two hundred odd supporters of the group well in their campaign. Although the tone of some of their comments suggests that they are not optimistic of success.
The Days of our Facebook: How Love Moved to Hate
by Allen Stern
It's always amazing to me to watch how quick the Internets shift on a product, service or person. One day it's love, the next day it's hate. It seems that we are in the hate portion of Facebook these days. Let's take a quick look back at the past few months for Facebook:
Comments
Turkey is in ninth place among countries using Facebook.
Posted by: metin | December 2, 2007 04:14 PM
Deleuze&Guattari write that face is the deterritorialization of the head which culminates in a violent reterritorialization of the whole body. Face is nothing but subjection. That's why I constantly change my profile, after all we need to go beyond the face and we do that by using various masks. Long live the reign of simulacra.
Posted by: Muge Serin | December 2, 2007 11:59 PM
I know I am into philosophy again, but facebook also makes me recall Emmanuel Levinas whom I don't read anymore for I decided he is a theologian rather than a philosopher. He is after all the guru of exposure and face to face. Seeing is violence for Levinas while speech is the genuine relation par excellence. I don't always agree with him, but I like it when he says language denudes the face. This is to say I care a great deal about my status updates. There you go, you have some philosophical feedback on facebook, don't forget, after all it is a book and I am the bookish type.
Posted by: Muge Serin | December 3, 2007 12:10 AM
well Müge, grateful for your comments. these are probably the most philosophical comments this blog ever witnessed:)
Posted by: erkan | December 3, 2007 12:19 AM