so not only have i been lacking in the educational posts on here, but i’ve been lacking in posts altogether. i was trying to procrastinate and avoid actually getting work done by spending time on facebook, and then i remembered, “hey! we have an article on facebook! so why not talk about it and kill two birds with one stone?” and so i will.
i remember several years ago when facebook first surfaced – myspace was the big site and facebook was just “one of those college sites”. even upon entering college, i did not sign up for a facebook account, because, as i looked at it, i already had a myspace, so i wasn’t missing much. however, a friend convinced me to give it a try, and sooner or later i signed up. at first i wasn’t too interested in it – it was something new, i didn’t really know how to use it, and myspace in my opinion (at that time) was still better. i rarely used it, and didn’t really see a point to it.
a short time after i signed up, Mark Zuckerberg introduced the “news feed”, and many facebook users became outraged. groups were formed trying to eliminate it or complaining about it and many considered it “cyber stalking”. i, quite honestly, thought it was a great idea. it gave users information that in the past they would have to retrieve by viewing the profile of EVERY one of their friends. users still protested, but the news feed stayed, and after a while, i think more and more users began to like the idea of the news feed.
another addition to facebook that enraged users was the idea of making facebook public. no longer would college students have a networking site that was entirely for them; soon, anyone and everyone would be able to have an account of their own. once again, i felt it was a good idea. as the article stated, facebook is away of keeping in touch with the friends we already have. well, not all of our friends go to college, is it really fair to exclude them because of that fact? of course not. and those who want to keep facebook a “college site” can keep it so by only adding friends in college networks. as with the news feed, the dislike of this new feature faded over time, as im sure users realized it was a good idea after all.
the final great change to facebook – the only was i was not a fan of at first – was the addition of “applications”. at first, i really did not like these because i thought they added too much “junk” (unnecessary quotatations there? you tell me) to a person’s page. many people (including myself) felt that facebook was beginning to turn into myspace, and sooner or later it would become the crazy mess that myspace is now. the simple solution? if you don’t like the applications, don’t use them. but how do you avoid them on someone else’s page? you can’t, unless you don’t go to their page. however, the applications did something that i really hadn’t thought of before, they allow more self expression on each users page. each page no longer had the same layout with the same basic information (with “about me” and”interests” being the only basic form of expression). the applications also allow other websites and companies to take their part into the supersite facebook has become. and besides, theyre fun!
what i love about facebook is the sense of privacy it still has, and i’m sure it will maintain. no one can view your site unless they are your friend, and no one can be your friend unless you allow it. i also like that it is more protected in a way. yes, it still has ads on each page, but it is not overcrowded with large, sometimes annoying ads. similarly, your page cant get hacked into, so there are no viruses or spam. i must say, i LOVE that aspect.
I knew the history of facebook before reading the article, simply because i experienced the changes, but i had no idea that Mark Zuckerberg faced so much negativity because of those changes. He knew what he was doing with each change he made, and he knew that although some would not like the changes at first – afterall, we all love what we are already comfortable with – they would adapt to them and like them eventually. when i first signed up, i had to force myself to log into it once in a while; and now? i have to force myself to log out. im sure there are millions of others out there who have done the same, proving just how popular facebook has become. i had no idea, though, that Zuckerberk turned down 1 billion dollars for the site. come one now, 1 billion dollars?!?! he wouldnt have to work another day in his life! but he knew it would get bigger, and it has.
youre a smart man, Mark Zuckerberg, and ive got to admit – im pretty damn jealous.