Are Librarians Helping to Sink the Ship on Facebook?
Howard Rheingold the guy behind the concept of “smart mobs” has dropped a rant about Facebook on his blog.
“I am getting half a dozen Facebook friend requests a day from people who claim not to remember friending me. When I complained in my status message, another Facebooker told me that the “Friend Finder” overrides user privacy settings and spams friend requests via users’ gmail contact lists. Between that and the really awful message board feature that renders groups near meaningless, I’m beginning to conclude that Facebook growth will start slowing, then stagnate, and eventually it will die a slow death. It’s too much work to respond to friend requests, too little ability to set my own boundaries, too many silly apps, and not enough return on the investment of my time. They seriously should have taken the big money when it was offered. If Facebook founders think they are going to be the “social operating system of the web,” they are delusional. They won’t even be AOL. It’s definitely an interesting fad at that moment, and if I ignore all demands on my attention, it can be a useful broadcast channel. But as an online social network, it’s sinking itself. “ – Howard Rheingold
I wonder with many librarians participating in Facebook as an outreach tool, if Facebook users are viewing librarians being there as spam in itself? As more often than not, I hear students say in regards to that other online social network Myspace, that it is “my-space!” not “your-space!”, so unwanted solicitations even from friendly librarians are not welcome.
Are librarians the spam of the online social network world?
For more info see:
http://www.smartmobs.com/2007/09/02/facebook-friending-spam/
Tags: digital natives, smart mobs, Web2.0/Library2.0
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