Doc Searls, one of the early bloggers and co-author of what many consider to be the Bible of social networking philosophy, The Cluetrain Manifesto, hasn’t been a big fan of Facebook. I’m with him on that. There isn’t much conversation that isn’t “water cooler†talk, and comparing favorites lists. Even in areas one would think would foster conversation, like “What I’m Readingâ€, it seems to be focused on the list rather than on specific thoughts and opinions on specific books.
A “Facebook friend†who is also an offline friend and former co-worker noticed this tendency in Twitter, which is what Facebook tends to highlight in pushing forward the “Status Updatesâ€:
I spent an hour yesterday reading my own Xanga blog. I realized something.. Twitter destroys ALL forms of prolonged coherent thought.
oh, this thing with Facebook. I have yet to get EXCITED about it ….it seems to be all the rage. There are some cool things about it. But it doesn’t move me like blogging has. I need a filtering mechanism for it, to weed out all the insanely uninteresting stuff. And the constant barrage of things to join and games to play. It’s like face to face in a bad way: just more surface stuff to smile and nod about, meanwhile, we move on with precious few outlets to talk about things that matter, or having the kind of conversations that connect us to others at a deeper level, where the real person we are lurks.
