Dave Winer Doesn't Get Facebook

Dave Winer states that Facebook sucks:

[from Why Facebook sucks (Scripting News)]

[...]

It's another one of those user generated content things, only this time I'm building up an address book that I can look at, but can only do things with it that Facebook lets me do.

Why exactly do I need Facebook to get in between me and my address book?

I mean, I understand why they want me to tell them everyone I know, but how about letting me download a copy to my computer, so I can back it up, use it on my iPhone or Blackberry, bequeath it to my heirs, write a book about it, or give a copy to Google or Netflix or Yahoo, or you get the idea.

It's the last thing they don't want me to do, give a copy to a competitor of theirs. And they hope I won't notice that I'm doing all this work and not insisting on at least being their equal when it comes to my data.

Sometime in November Google is rumored to be revealing their answer to Facebook. Whatever it is it will surely have an API, and will allow Google apps to share the info, and it will, if it hopes to compete with Facebook, provide some access to this data to app developers. But the true measure of their gravitas will be whether they give full control of the user's data to the user. If they do that, no matter what's missing from their software, it won't suck. Permalink to this paragraph

Dave, you are really crazy if you think that Facebook is a big address book. That's like Ted Stevens saying the Internet was a big bunch of tubes.

As I recently noted in a post responding to Christine Rosen's mealy-mouthed negativism about Facebook (see Christine Rosen on Virtual Friendships and The New Narcissism), people don't grasp Facebook by peering at it from afar. But even though she isn't for it, and doesn't grok, she at least knew that it was about friendship, connectedness, and a sense of belonging,: not a phonebook.

[from Christine Rosen on Virtual Friendships and The New Narcissism]

[...]

And of course we can't expect Rosen -- who is naysayer, albeit well-meaning -- to gain a personal sense of involvement by taking off her shoes, rolling up her pant legs, and to wade out into the flow. Too cold! Too wet! Too many risks!

Online interaction is increasingly a flow of small touches, brief quips, recommendations, updates, and inquiries. I maintain that you can't analyze your way to understanding how it all works, anymore than you can master the piano or martial arts analytically. You have to wade in it, maybe even wallow in it, to get it.

But those who live in a world of thought and will, who analyze their way through everything, are generally reluctant to wade in the water. It's easier to sit on the bank, telling stories of all those who skinned their shins on a rock, stepped on a frog, lost their way, slipped and drowned.

Yes, there are risks involved. Yes, people do jump headfirst into the shallows, and break their necks. And that may be enough to keep a lot of people out of the flow. But not the rest of us. Some of us live more through the skin than the brain, are pulled more than pushed, are more curious than cautious. It takes all kinds to keep it rich, even the reluctant and risk-averse.

Hey, Christine! Come on in. The water's fine.

Hey, Dave! Come on in. The water's fine.

Update 12:40pm 14 Oct -- After reading my post, Dave Winer offered this via Twitter:

Stowe Boyd is a creep. I've been wanting to say that for quite a long time. Now I have. Onward. 25 minutes ago from web

Stowe Boyd is just the kind of idiot who parades his idiocy around by saying other people "don't get" something, when he "gets" nothing. 17 minutes ago from web

To which I twittered:

@davewiner - Thanks Dave. Nice. Tasteful. I feel that you don't get it, but I wasn't attacking your character or intelligence. Pretty low. 10 minutes ago from twitterrific in reply to davewiner

I guess I join the club of people publicly savaged by Dave Winer. Hey, Jason make room! 10 minutes ago from twitterrific

So much for a discourse based on ideas. It's particularly interesting how Dave wants to snipe at me in Twitter, and then states 'onward', like he's over it. Then he goes on to continue his personal attack.

Didn't he start his linkbaiting with an inflammatory title, Why Facebook Sucks? He has to expect that someone is going to call him on it, since there are 40M+ users doing things on Facebook, and its not principally being used as a Rolodex, people.

Comments

[Ian Betteridge]

I think you're missing the point that Dave's making, which isn't merely that Facebook is a giant address book - it's that the contact information, plus every other kind of information you have in there, is locked in. There's no getting it out to any other site, or any application other than that built with the Facebook API.

That's not good, no matter how you cut it.

[Dennis McDonald]

these arguments are boring. facebook is good for some things, bad for others. so?

[vanderwal]

Dave Weiner is dead on. Not only does Facebook allow for keeping your contact information they encourage it. Many people are now pointing to their Facebook profile page as their most current instance of their contact info, which makes it a place to get info for one's own address book. Facebook is making loud statement they want to take on LinkedIn, which is an open resource for address books as they allow you to easily download the contact info stored there.

Facebook only gets small bits of social software, but much of their platform is about Facebook not the people using it. It is very antisocial. I think Dave Weiner gets Facebook just fine. There are many of us using it as that is the bar where everybody is hanging out today, but it fails on many fronts as a piece of the social web. Facebook is building AOL, feature by feature as it was in the late 90s in its closed proprietary state.

[Stowe Boyd]

vanderwal - I am not saying you can't store contact information there, but to characterize it as just an address book is too limited. There are many other things going on in there, guys.

I am not taking Facebook's side on the open/closed debate. I agree we should be able to pull our data out in any number of ways.

But the basic value proposition of Facebook invilvement is something else altogther, and it has value. So I maintain that even if the data is currently closed, Facebook doesn't suck

[A. Garcia]

I agree with Dave Winer. I don't see the point of Facebook. Let's have a compelling argument in favor of Facebook. What value does it really have besides the trivial?

[Joey Tyson]

What struck me most about Dave's take on Facebook's "openness" was that he kept talking about "my data". But much of what I access on Facebook is not my data - it's an aggregation of many friends' data.

[Don Park]

personal insults, intended or imagined, are not information imho.

[Ian Betteridge]

But Stowe, *what* else is going on in there? Other than simply being the place where all my friends are? What does Facebook itself bring to the party?

[Eric Eggertson]

Ian: If all your friends are there, and they're sharing videos, notes, photos, etc. with each other, why does Facebook have to "bring" anything else?

Except for online sensual massage, there's more than enough there to keep me coming back (I'm still waiting for the massage app).

[kid mercury]

i agree there is no need for FB to bring anything else if they are bringing the place where you meet your friends. the question, though, is what social networking service is the best at helping you connect with your "social graph"? i don't think it's facebook. google will do it much better (especially as it integrates all of its acquisitions, like jaiku).

[Ian Betteridge]

Stowe: "If all your friends are there, and they're sharing videos, notes, photos, etc. with each other, why does Facebook have to "bring" anything else?"

Because it doesn't do any of those things better than any other service. You get a second-rate video sharing service, a second-rate note sharing service, a second-rate photo sharing service... and all this information is locked inside Facebook, never to appear anywhere else.

Every time anyone argues for Facebook as a service, their arguments come down to "all your friends are there". That's not a feature of the service itself: it's a function of lock-in.

Agree with you on the massage app though. That's one I'd be happy to go for lock-in for :)