Tag: Facebook

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Techcrunch slay the trolls – Collateral Damage Is Heavy

I don’t like Facebook, let’s be clear from the start, I don’t like the way it tries to share info, I don’t like the way it operates beyond what it tries to sell itself as, it’s great for people who know each other and want to keep in touch, but it goes much deeper than that spreading all kinds of personal info to people whom people don’t know. Therefore it shouldn’t come as any surprise that I’m not keen on sites who employ Facebook comments, one such site is Techcrunch.

Techcrunch introduced Facebook comments at the start of the month, they felt this would help cutdown on trolling and within a week were saying it had, as described here. However they weren’t exactly jubliant about this because, they’ve stifled comments full stop, admitting themselves that comments are dramatically reduced, therefore suggesting there are plenty of people who weren’t trolling, who now aren’t posting. There are those who use Yahoo to comment there, but generally comments were down.

Continue reading “Techcrunch slay the trolls – Collateral Damage Is Heavy”

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Trying to make people play nicely does not work

Last summer, in an attempt to improve their forums, Blizzard announced people would need to use their real names on the forums, this went down like a lead balloon. Blizzard backed off after many pages of annoyed forum posts.

This week, TechCrunch decided to introduce the new Facebook commenting system, which some believe will help to reduce trolling, unlike Blizzard TechCrunch doesn’t have a link back to an account holder so anonymous trolling there is easier, however like the Blizzard issue, some people will shy away from commenting there because they don’t want their life analysed by some twerp on a forum who will comment on their real life location instead of the issues of the article and anyone who has spent more than ten minutes on Facebook knows that a lot of trolling goes on there, indeed there’s bullying there too, which is why many education organisations have people watching Facebook and other social networks for signs of bullying.

Facebook comments will stifle debate and put people off from commenting, some people aren’t allowed to comment on certain issues due to workplace social networking policies, you can of course still comment on TechCrunch via Yahoo, but this is yet again a sign of Facebook being a lot less of a supplement to a system and more of an egging of people to use Facebook.

This week Linden Lab rolled out their new community platform, one noteable absentee at launch is a General Discussion Forum, some described the old one as a cesspool but the discussions that happened there will find their ways to other areas, to the detriment of the intended purpose of that area, LL really should know this by now and just create a General Discussion area.

Continue reading “Trying to make people play nicely does not work”

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Facebook is not the best place to find out about cool things in Second Life

This Facebook business is getting out of control, not content with a new widget on the homepage we now have the following rather breathtaking claim from Amanda Linden on the blog post about communication improvements, which can be read here:

“Facebook is the best place to find out about cool things going on in Second Life, share ideas, and get the inside scoop on inworld events, contests, machinima releases, PR activities, fun discussions, and more. Come join over 111,000 people who have “Liked” our Second Life Facebook page.”

You know what, it may have PR activities, fun discussions, machinima releases, contests etc. but there is no way in hell that it is the best place to find out about the cool things going on in Second Life, a cursory glance at the page shows one event listed and a few discussions going on. Twitter has far more chatter, Plurk (thanks Daniel Voyager for reminding me) has an active Second Life  community and both of these places allow you to use your Second Life name, but the best place to find out about cool things going on in Second Life, is within Second Life.

Continue reading “Facebook is not the best place to find out about cool things in Second Life”

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Extending Reach – Facebook and Other Options

Hamlet, over at New World Notes, is on a Facebook offensive, as opposed to Ciaran, over here, who is on an offensive Facebook campaign.  I do agree with Hamlet with regard to Facebook having the potential to extend reach, which it clearly does have.  Indeed I have no issue at all with Linden Lab or any other Second Life residents promoting Second Life on Facebook, where I do have a problem is with Linden Lab promoting Facebook on Second Life, as they did again recently on the spring break blog post.

I fully believe LL are doing this all arse about face, they should be offering Facebook exclusive promotions, on Facebook, to Facebook users (as opposed to Second Life users, although some clearly fall in both categories). People may well moan about promotions on Facebook, but the idea is surely to extend Second Life’s reach into Facebook territory, not extend Facebook into Second Life territory, which is more akin to driving the wrong way up a one way street.

However Facebook isn’t the only way to extend reach and Facebook simply does not welcome Second Life users, to use their Second Life names, full stop. Facebook doesn’t like pseudonyms, beyond the rich and famous and those whose cause Robert Scoble takes up. Continue reading “Extending Reach – Facebook and Other Options”

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Stagnating but by no means dead

I was ready to move on from Facebook, with Inara Pey frowning at me on her blog, and Hamlet Au covering different angles over at New World notes, I was all Facebooked out, but, in a turn of events not related to privacy and more in line with some of the points Hamlet made in his New World Notes post, there’s a very interesting post over at Gamasutra about virtual worlds, social media and why the easiest pathway often wins.

What’s interesting about both the Gamastura post, and Hamlet’s post, is the numbers, the number of people using Facebook compared to Second Life is quite staggering, this is largely down to Facebook being both cheaper and easier to use than Second Life, but that only tells part of the story, World of Warcraft has something like thirteen million registered accounts, so people will engage with a client based system when the appeal is there.

Both posts point out that at one stage Second Life was considered best placed to capture the largest share of the market, with 3D worlds set to replace 2D webpages, and that will happen eventually, whether Second Life is that 3D platform is a different matter because they were ahead of their time with their ambitions and now have issues with trying to scale. However this will happen one day, and it will be easy to participate and will be the path of least resistance. There was a time when people poured scorn on Amazon for having a website and felt that angle had no legs. Continue reading “Stagnating but by no means dead”

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