Wednesday, December 08, 2004

The Ball State Daily News - BEWILDERED SOCIETY: Facebook may have evil twin coming

Special Edition: Extended Version not see in the Daily News

As college students, it is our requisite duty to consistently be in touch with our changing world of trends, fashions and…I got poked!

Ah, yes: speaking of trends, theFacebook.com is single-click-edly taking over this entire freakin’ country.

For those of you who have not yet joined – save yourself now before it’s too late. Drop the mouse; don’t even look at the introduction page of the Web site. I assure you, the force may be too strong to resist! Save yourself from the sinister evil forces that are the Facebook junkies! Go now! Leave!

Too late? Already hitting the reload button hoping, praying for new friend request?

Pity.

I was addicted (I’m slowly working my way out thanks to…oh yeah: school.) I’ve made plenty of friends, recounted my “connections” and poked more people than my mother would approve of. Which is funny: Prior to the Facebook, the last time I said, “Can I poke you?” I ended up on the defendant’s side of a courtroom.

I’m still appealing that case, by the way.

What in the world is poking, anyway? A quick look at the Frequently Asked Questions on the Facebook and one will find that brainchild(s) behind the site (Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg and a few of his friends) created the feature to… well, they do not have a damn clue either.

Says Facebook’s F.A.Q.: “We have about as much of an idea as you do. We thought it would be fun to make a feature that has no specific purpose and to see what happens from there. So mess around with it, because you're not getting an explanation from us.”

As for the rest of the site, many users have gone back to “Facebook” old high school buddies, or to take endless amounts of time to search current listings for “people that look friendly.”

Translation: people you want to score with.

Just when we were starting to find the Facebook a waste of time, it gave us one more reason to log-in.

“Sweet fancy Moses! It’s (insert random friend’s name here)’s birthday!”

Well, at least it is good for something. Yet, will the Facebook ever lose its 3 a.m. appeal?

Not in the near future. College newspapers are reporting that the Zuckerberg and co. are in the midst of developing their own peer-to-peer (P2P) technology to incorporate into the site.

That’s right: it’s Napster plus the pictures of your 100 closest friends.

Insert WireHog, the Harvard brains’ latest invention intended to integrate P2P file sharing with the Facebook. The add-on, still currently in beta testing out west, will eventually make its way to all campuses on the Facebook network. WireHog will not allow broad searches, according to an article from Dartmouth College’s campus paper; instead it will provide functions similar to that of instant messaging file swapping protocols.

Regardless, WireHog will not allow you to cyberly swap your friends.

Oh – but ask and you shall receive!

Riding on the coattails of theFacebook is the unrelated, devil-redheaded stepchild site Catch27.com.

The site is, actually, pure evil. What is even more horrifying is the fact that the site’s PR department will admit to it.

Based upon the theory of your “true social life,” Catch27 allows friends, err… opponents, to swap friends based upon their scores. And no, we’re not talking about your roommate’s lucky nights with those woozy partygoers last weekend.

We both know they were way ugly. Yes – even the blonde.

At any rate, these scores are what some my call literal “cool points.” Yes: a value assigned to your inherit coolness. In actuality, the site seems to base these values on a rating of how hot looking you are (sooo 90s) and how funny your profile is (sooo fourth grade).

Don’t like your current set of friends? Dump ‘em and get new ones!

Indeed, a site that has self-esteem builder written all over it.

If you ask me THIS site needs the P2P technology, complete with its own stock of depressive emo music.

My rather non-scientific survey of opinions on this site has spanned a broad scale of emotions. From “Wow,” to “Neat,” to “Wow – neat!” and of course the ever-so-popular “Damn, that’s just cruel.”

Most people I’ve told the idea to agree, though, that the site sounds rather intriguing.

I have tried to test the site out myself, but my friends and coworkers have been reluctant to join in on the festivities.

If only I could poke them into it...

Uh-oh – here come the lawyers again.

#posted by Dave 3:54:00 AM

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