Flutterby™! : the new AOL

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the new AOL

2007-07-10 18:04:57.702044+00 by Dan Lyke 3 comments

Via RC3, Jason Kottke says Facebook is the new AOL, and then elaborates a little bit more, but the overall message is simple: Facebook wants you to build applications for their platform, not for the web in general.

I'd long forgotten about SMS.ac, but I'd talked with them a while ago and had looked at what it took to build on their platform, and had signed up for them, and recently got yet another "I am lonely girl looking to chat" spam via my account with them and realized that while I've signed up for all of these "social networking" services because someone else has and it seemed like a good idea at the time, the vast majority of them have just become sources of spam. The only two I actually use are MySpace so that I can read my sister's blog, and LiveJournal so that I can comment on various people who publish there. But from Friendster to Orkut to the (apparently defunct) Tribe, even to eBay, I've had made and maintained better connections by having a strong web presence that I own than by using anyone else's tool to try to mediate between me and my friends.

[ related topics: Weblogs moron Sociology Social Software ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: made: 2007-07-10 19:55:49.238007+00 by: ebradway

I have a MySpace account so I can monitor my daughter's account and I have a Facebook account because some old school friends started using it. MySpace results in 1-5 SPAMs a day. Facebook results in people "writing on my wall" but I don't notice because I don't have it setup as an RSS feed I subscribe to.

I find MySpace to be a royal PITA because of all the crappy advertisements. Facebook is better but it requires jumping through so many hoops to setup the network, it sometimes feels like I need to either "tickle bear" or "give bear honey" in order to "go cave").

I use Flickr and find the tighter groups (like the KAP groups) are quite pleasant. All the "best of" groups generate a lot of image views but result in crappy comments.

I also have a Blogger blog (www.asifanyonecares.com) that I most use for stuff that I'd rather not bother Flutterby with but feel I need to put out in the open.

I'm not sure, though, if having control over your web application really equates to having control over your web presence or if that relates at all to the strength of your web presence. What Flutterby represents is a fairly small social network that has been in existence close to ten years. Of course, I can't name another platform for a social network that has existed that long...

Personally, I find I like the way the different systems on the web work (like blogger and flickr) but I prefer tight integration between them. I really wish Google would buy Yahoo so that I can use one login for both blogger and flickr.

#Comment Re: made: 2007-07-11 00:47:39.272548+00 by: dexev

FYI Dan, you can use your OpenID to leave comments on LiveJournal. Or, I suppose, use your LiveJournal ID as your OpenID...

#Comment Re: made: 2007-07-11 02:13:09.836908+00 by: topspin [edit history]

I've taken to using "mdog.com" on my yuppie mobile phone to access MySpace. No ads and email/myspaceblogs come up clean, though the site can be sweet sorghum slow at times and some pages AREN'T mobile formatted, but email/blogs are.... which is what I go there for.

For MySpace on your mobile (or desktop, though the formatting is clearly mobile) and Facebook if you wish to check it out.