No code will ever be written by anyone that emotionally replicates the value we gain from having real relationships with our real friends and family.
Facebook jumped the shark a long time ago…
Imagine if, when the telephone was just catching on, the only way you could use it is if you let some voice interrupt your conversation with “Drink Coca-Cola, it’s good!!” And then, what if the phone companies, in order to pay for this new medium, sold the contents of your conversation to companies so they could interrupt your conversation in “more targeted” ways?
Doug Rushkoff had an interesting piece the other day that touched on something I’ve been thinking a bit about. In it he argues that Facebook is cashing in because they see that their party is over. And when a party is over, people get tired of socializing and leave. He says:
Yet social media is itself as temporary as any social gathering, nightclub or party. It’s the people that matter, not the venue. So when the trend leaders of one social niche or another decide the place everyone is socializing has lost its luster or, more important, its exclusivity, they move on to the next one, taking their followers with them.