The Anti-Social Media

Of all the things that Facebook announced at f8, the one I took most interest in was the new ability of apps to share very last thing you do.

I can’t wait for this feature to go mainstream, because soon enough we will all embarrass the hell out of ourselves.

Sure, right now you can only share how bad your taste in music is on Spotify, but that will change. Everything you read? Shared. Everything you watch? Shared. Everything you own? Shared.

Just wait, soon you’ll know when every single one of your friends has “Taken a dump.” And the world will be much better because we are all sharing everything.

Because I’m a Facebook developer (I know, the irony), I’ve had access to the timeline for a few days now, or basically before everyone read posts like this and enabled it for themselves.

And I hate to admit it, but I really enjoy it. I’ve already pimped mine out with my cat.

The basis of the social network is two things. the user profile, and messages between those users. That’s something simple to make, and we’ve seen it evolve into an endless stream of news feeds and updates across Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, MySpace, and any other social network.

But people don’t live their lives as a never ending stream of messages in a news feed. We don’t think of our lives as each individual observation and photo. That’s why the timeline works.

Some of it is weird for sure. Previously wall posts from friends show up all over the timeline. This could be cool if they were posts like, “You’re getting married!?!” but they’re not. They’re much more trivial. In my case, they include a whole series from a guy who was desperately trying to get into my pants. While I know some people will have posts that are awesome, my experience has mostly been a rehashing of every crazy message from college, including what may be my very first wall post which says “SHOW ME YOUR BOOBS.”

We were classy in 2004 when we thought none of this would be public and we’d probably never use Facebook after college.

But some of it is touching in a funny and weird sort of way. Another messages from an ex in 2005 tells me “You’re such a Facebook whore.”

Damn he knew me well.

If there are downsides to the timeline, it’s not with the timeline itself, but rather how we use Facebook and the timeline. The awkward wall posts and statuses that you thought were dead and buried come back to haunt you, prominently posted and arranged. They’re easy enough to hide, but it can be pretty awkward the first time on your timeline. Also, personal branding will be taken to an even crazier extreme. Now you can brand your birth, your wedding, when you overcame cancer.  But I’ll get into that at a later time.

For now, maybe, just maybe, one part of social networking just got a bit better with a profile that isn’t just lists of interests, but rather reflects who a person is and how the events of their life shaped who they are. And you can finally add that you got a pet. So no more crazy pet profiles (though Miss Chibi is keeping hers).

What do you think of the timeline? Is it genius? Evil genius? Or just another crappy web profile? And are you keeping your pet’s profile? Leave a comment and let me know what you think of all these changes.

Remember when Facebook was about connecting you with your friends and people in the world around you?

I know that idea seems novel and pure, so some of you many not believe it. But its true. I swear there was a time when Facebook didn’t just shove half-thought out features onto the site in an attempt to connect you to more meaningless crap on the internet.

The subscribe button makes no sense when connecting me with the people in my life. Now, when I go to a friend’s profile, it shows me that I’m friends with someone, and that I’m subscribed to them.

Since when did friendship equate to subscription? Are my friends Newsweek, Time, and Entertainment Weekly?

Now, if I click on the subscribe button, I get a shit ton of options that make sense logically, but not realisitcally. “Only important updates?” Who decides what’s important? Facebook? Does it decide based on comments? Because then every “important” updates will be “Why does Facebook keep changing?” will be the most important updates.

Ugh.

I get it that I don’t want to read all of my Aunt’s weird updates about how much she love’s her cat, but I’m a human being. I got skills. I can filter that stuff out and skim through it.

And while we’re at it, let’s not forget that Facebook is now suggesting people to subscribe to. Look, I really don’t have a shit about the latest lame update from Facebook’s COO, your consumer marketing manager who’s kind of hot, or Tom from MySpace. I have no relationship with these people. I barely give half a shit about all the half-assed updates I get from my so called “friends” that I’ve subscribed to. Why should I care when your leadership team posts about how much they love coffee and bacon?

The only reason I need more crap in my news feed is so you can display more ads in attempt to make more money off of the data I’ve given you. And I’m not falling for that. The subscribe button is a whack attempt to keep people on the Facebook even longer. It gives people a false sense of connection to people they don’t know, and confuses how we interact with the people we do know.

Let’s call it like it is: Facebook’s subscribe button is the latest piece of crap in Facebook’s war to take over the entire internet. It’s poorly implemented, poorly communicated, and holds little value for the average user.

But Facebook, focus on connecting people with their real friends. There’s more reward in making people feel good and together than giving them a false sense of connection to some vague internet personality.