Okay, maybe hate is too strong of a word but there are some things that disappoint me about Facebook. I’m not talking about the usual annoying things like Farm Wars or Fishville or whatever. I’m talking about how the internet has become Facebook-centric.
What I mean by that is that to a lot of people Facebook is the internet. Either Facebook is all the internet they need in their daily lives or they’re afraid to leave Facebook.
For a content creator like myself, this can be maddening. I pour my heart and soul into something I’m passionate about and post it on my website which as you can plainly see is not Facebook. What I would like to happen is to see people read my posts then leave a comment on my website about what they thought about the post. Instead what happens is that a link to my content and a blurb gets posted to Facebook and rather than posting a comment on my site they may post a comment on Facebook instead. Since my Facebook is only open to my friends the rest of the internet misses out on seeing that comment. Facebook does not offer the option to turn off the comments either.
The ironic thing is that people can comment on my site by signing in with Facebook Connect. Their comments can even be posted to their Facebook yet people are content to stay behind the walls of Facebook.
I’m sure some of you are saying then why don’t I post my content on Facebook. Besides the fact that Facebook is walled off from the rest of the internet, there is also the problem of Facebook being temporary. What do I mean by that? You must know the names of the other social sites that have been left for dead over the years. Names like Xanga, Livejournal, and even the once-mighty MySpace. They all have one thing in common, they didn’t last forever. Sure, they’re all still around but now they’re scoffed at as internet uses say “We have Facebook now.”
The thing is that one day Facebook will also be thrown to the wayside once something better comes along. Then all my content would be stranded on Facebook with no way of transferring it somewhere else. That would be like if all my content was currently stuck on MySpace.
The other problem I have is that with all the status updates and other trivialities posted on Facebook it seems that good content is lost in a sea of over-saturation. With Facebook, it really is hard to separate the signal from the noise. However, with everyone now on Facebook, I have little choice but to try to promote my work there.
Facebook reminds me a lot like AOL during the 90s. AOL really didn’t want their customers venturing out into the real internet so they created what has been referred to as a walled garden where AOL would keep you contained to their content. The only difference between AOL and Facebook is that AOL forced you to stay within their walls while most people have happily given up their internet freedom to stay under Facebook’s house arrest.
So for all the content creators out there please explore the internet that is outside of Facebook. Especially since Facebook won’t be around forever.
The Trench Reynolds Report 