Is facebook on the wane?

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Dr Lobster*
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i'm not a great facebook user myself, i have an account and i use it mostly for keeping in touch with people i don't see all that often, i have the app on my phone and i occasionally check it (every couple of days on average)

now there are the types that seem to feel the need to keep us updated with everything they do, indeed, even on christmas day they found the time to upload dozens of photographs of their kids opening presents/christmas eve night on the piss.

however, the activity i'm seeing is nothing like what it was 2 or 3 years ago (from memory, it seems around 2007-2008 was the peak), it's just the same old people posting about bollocks.

is anybody else finding this?
Philip
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I don't think so, it's just people are posting less. There's nothing replacing it is there? Not like when Facebook slowly but surely replaced MySpace.

Although I don't like the Timeline, it's a good extra feature but It shouldn't replace the profile entirely.
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Gavin Scott
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Earlier I was thinking about a thread to debunk the viral guff that gets posted.

Some that are currently boiling my piss -

"hover over this post and click unsubscribe, and I'll do the same for you. This stops hackers gaining access to your profile!!! Repost this!!!"

No it doesn't you pinheads, it just makes you less visible to your friends. How could this possibly stop hackers? The problem with this is, when you point this out, usually a smart pal obliges by deleting the post from their page - but the anti-viral message doesn't then reach around in the same way the viral does. And I'm bored correcting people.

The other one annoying me is an illustration of people wearing saggy jeans sound their bums. The attached message claims that this was a secret prison code for "please penetrate my bum" so that inmates wouldn't get into trouble with wardens.

WHAT?! When did Bubba ever need a secret signal to shag an inmate? Wardens give not one hoot who's getting a ride after lights out. This is more about stopping the (admittedly hideous) trend of wearing your trousers at half mast, by inferring that only gay boys do it.

And those, "you want a new car, a new phone - someone with cancer only wants one thing - to beat their illness. 97% of people won't post this, but I hope you're one of the 3% who do".

Firstly, people living with cancer want all kinds of things. It's insulting, actually, to paint such a picture, and worse to add a dollop of guilt with a spurious statistic attached. FUCK OFF.

Now that's out the way, no, I don't feel Facebook is on the wane, but given my age and circle of pals I do see more pictures of kids and dogs than I really can be bothered with. But I guess that's what parents have on their minds. All the time.

I can't bear those self indulgent, seemingly meaningless messages people post with no backstory or explanation. You know, like, "i hope you're proud of what you did". Clearly intended to make someone else feel guilty, but broadcast to everyone. That's pretty poor form, and dull to read.

All that said, I love my Facebook list generally. There's a few that I retain only as I'd feel guilty if I deleted them, or they're related to people who would be cross with me for removing them. But as I've got pals all over, there's waves of posts from Australia, the US and UK at different times of day, and there's something nice about that.

It's twitter I canny be arsed with. I just can't.
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Gavin Scott
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Oh FFS. Just seen it again, and it's getting more elaborate.
With the new 'FB timeline' on its way this week for EVERYONE...please do both of us a favour: Hover over my name above. In a few seconds you'll see a box that says "Subscribed." Hover over that, then go to "Comments and Likes" and unclick it. That will stop my posts and yours to me from showing up on the side bar for everyone to see, but MOST IMPORTANTLY it LIMITS HACKERS from invading our profiles. If you re-post this I will do the same for you. You'll know I've acknowledged you because if you tell me that you've done it I'll 'like' it. Thank you
Dr Lobster*
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i'd actually forgotten about the moronic "chain letter" phenomenon... this one makes my skin crawl:
Remember this Christmas when you're eating your dinner, smiling and laughing, that in another house there's an empty chair where a hero should be sitting. They gave up their lives so you could sit with your family, so light a candle for the heroes who did not make it back and for those who are still serving out in Afghanistan. Show some respect and put this as your status even if it's just for an hour.
it seems to surpise some people that if you join the raf you might actually find yourself fighting a war in some faraway country for months on end. it aint all toy guns in cranwell.
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madmusician
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I disagree with the post above, as I remember it getting very cluttered back in 2007/8, before 'new Facebook' came in, with the wall part of the profile buried below all kinds of spurious apps. At least the 'Wall' has always been the focal point of the profile since the 2008 redesign. I don't like some of the things that they have done (although I love the timeline and I think it's great to have a complete archive available), but you get used to them and get over it.

Yes, people are posting less, but people are there and replying to messages/wall posts and so on.

From my own perspective, I do post less to Facebook. 3 years or so ago I posted lots on there, attempts at witty humour, updates of what I was doing and so on. Then I connected my Twitter account to Facebook and pushed all the dull rubbish through. Now they're completely separate, using Twitter for the mundane 'Really enjoyed this TV programme'-esque posts and Facebook more for in-jokes in my social circle, photos that would only be funny to the minority and so on.

Having said that, I still go on there, flick through the News Feed, see what other people are up to just as much as I did since I first got a profile in 2007, so from that perspective I am using it just as much.

Just my two-penneth...
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Nick Harvey
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Gavin Scott wrote:Firstly, people living with cancer want all kinds of things. It's insulting, actually, to paint such a picture, and worse to add a dollop of guilt with a spurious statistic attached. FUCK OFF.
Thank you, Gavin. Totally agreed.
Dr Lobster*
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i've seen probably a dozen or so pictures like this; only in norfolk do retards flock to the decaying corpse of a whale.

you can read more here, where apparently some people have been hacking bits off it:

http://www.lynnnews.co.uk/news/latest-n ... _1_3375376

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Pete
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The problem I have with Facebook is its insistence it knows what you want to read better than you do. If I want to ignore someone, I'll ignore them and unsubscribe from their posts. All this "top news" and managing to miss things out from the news feed is simply irritating and is behaving worse than it did three years ago.

In GOOD NEWS however you can now hide all posts from the Graun and Spotify which will keep the endless torrent of shit down a bit :)
"He has to be larger than bacon"
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nidave
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Pete wrote:The problem I have with Facebook is its insistence it knows what you want to read better than you do. If I want to ignore someone, I'll ignore them and unsubscribe from their posts. All this "top news" and managing to miss things out from the news feed is simply irritating and is behaving worse than it did three years ago.
I like the new timeline.. it conveys a lot of detail in an accessible way... some of my friends are even adding their own events to it...

The top news thing is stupid.. how does it know what's top news to me?? it changes on a daily basis... at least you can set it to "recent stories first" (pity it wont save that setting)

The new privacy settings (despite being all over the place) allow for some funky settings.. am able to keep things from other people if I want... (I don't want my family reading some of the filth my friends post) - not I have got groups set up properly it works...
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marksi
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...but it seems to be stupidly complicated to get those privacy settings right, and there's no easy way to check that you've got them right.
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