Twitter BloggerBattle

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.