And like a reality TV show, Facebook is enclosed, controlled, and manipulated. In the end, it's all weak and without substance.
I think it's brilliant that the boys at Facebook are taking on Netflix by developing their own streaming service. It's yet another hinge on the door used to lock people into the self-contained world of Facebook, where the skittish can comfortably dwell. I'm wondering exactly when Facebook will buy out Second Life and reveal its true intent.
I've said it before in this column, and I'd like to remind people what I think of Facebook: It is the second coming of AOL. It's what AOL should have morphed into if it hadn't failed. It's a community evolved from the ideas of MySpace and LiveJournal and a number of AOL ideas and all rolled into one cogent vision. Mark Zuckerberg's vision for Facebook was made in the image of his own introverted self—with a little Second Life thrown in.
I know many people who rely on Facebook to create an amorphous, plasmodial, shape-shifting version of themselves with an online personality (within the confines of Facebook).
"Friend me, like me, look at me." Oh no! Someone dropped me as a friend. Now I have to hound him to find out why.
Facebook is a world unto itself and has created what has to be refered to a second class citizenry online. It's laughable. When the Net was blooming in the mid-1990s, suddenly, all the isolated online services were forced to link into the Internet. This allowed people to explore outside the domain of a CompuServe or AOL.