Our Love Affair with Facebook: Happily Ever After or Wham, Bam, Thank You Mam? The numbers prove it, our daily routines show it – we are in love with Facebook. Why not, it provides for our communication needs the way we Filipinos like it – instant, simultaneous and best of all free (don’t we love free stuff?). Previous chapters in this wiki have discussed Facebook’s cultural significance to Filipino culture. Simply put, Facebook feeds our Filipinoness. While Facebook is undoubtedly significant, its effects may be both positive and negative. The more than eight million Filipino users may be oblivious to FB’s flaws today - blinded by our overflowing love with it - but the future may tell a different story. The final topic in this chapter will look into the future of Facebook and the possible reasons and implications of a golden wedding anniversary or a break-up. Are we going to stick with FB for better or for worse or will we sing “you’re only someone that I used to love” in the future? Pre-nuptial agreement We haven’t paid for a date, it is never even dutch. The fact that Facebook is free is perhaps the biggest reason why millions of Filipinos love it. Its tagline says, it’s free and always will be. It is a one-sided financial agreement that lets us enjoy FB and all its application for free. We probably don’t care how it gets the money to spend for us but rumors that FB will soon charge fees created quite a ripple. Facebook has continually denied these rumors and dismissed them as malware.
In Sylvia Cochran’s article however, she asks if there might be some kernel of truth to these persistent rumors. She cited an interview with FB’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. “Responding to the already well known question about the Facebook charge or fee, she responds by stating "...no, we are not planning on charging a basic fee for our basic services." She fails to explain what basic services are.” Cochran also mentioned a possible precedent in the case of NetZero which promised free Internet access only to charge users after two years. A pre-nuptial agreement might be in order before we take the leap. We should definitely look into the fineprint before agreeing to anything. Facebook use might be free, but applications and games might be charged in the future. What then would happen to our farms and restaurants? Charging fees, regardless of the amount, would spell the end of our relationship with Facebook. In need of Viagra Last September 23, Facebook suffered a malfunction. It was down or unreachable for many users, spawning internet jokes that productivity was up in the country and we finally pushed through with the long-delayed trip to the gym. While it didn’t last long – the site was up again on the same day – it was quite unnerving for millions of its users. We were, afterall, worried about our produce in Farmville, they need to be harvested lest they’d go waste. Robert Johnson from Facebook Engineering came up with an apology and an explanation. According to him, “the key flaw that caused this outage to be so severe was an unfortunate handling of an error condition. An automated system for verifying configuration values ended up causing much more damage than it fixed.” He went on to explain the technical details further and added that they have already made the corrections.
Do I hear a collective “ha?!” from Pinoys? The praning in us wonders if this is an isolated situation or is it an indication of things to come. With millions of concurrent users, can FB stay up or would it soon need a Viagra? Patience isn’t one of our strongest virtues and we are usually hard to please. A performance malfunction will not be tolerated and we might find ourselves back in the dating market sooner than later.
Irreconcilable differences We all got into this love affair with levelled expectations and mutual intentions. We want our networks – friends and family – to know what we had for breakfast. They can then “like” it or suggest a better omelette recipe. The sheer number of Filipino FB users however, creates an instant audience. With the current trends, FB may very well be our sari-sari store online. If I want to sell something, all I need to do is tag my friends. If I have a hundred friends who each have a hundred friends, that’s ten thousand potential buyers. Do we want it though? Isn’t it quite annoying to be tagged for almost anything, flooding even our email accounts?
Using Facebook as a venue for news is also double-edged. While it has proven to be useful and effective at times (Ondoy online news exchange), what credibility would a post have that answers the question “what‘s on your mind?” Can we really separate news from tsismis? Using Facebook as a platform for news and business may be a natural progression given the number of users and the amount of time we spend logged in. Facebook users are captive audiences and we can only imagine what enterprising organizations and individuals may come up with in the future. But an evolution of Facebook into something other than a social networking site may not augur well for Filipinos. We want it simple and we want fun. Perhaps the ability of the users to do whatever they want on Facebook, a feature that spells the success of FB, could necessitate another round of levelling of expectations. It’s Not You, It’s Me Facebook may be perfect. But so was Friendster a few years ago. But Friendster was quickly set aside in favour of MySpace and Facebook. Today, Friendster is but a distant memory. Why the shift? Are we technically savvy users who look into the management, ease of use, layout and design? Or are we just being true-blue Pinoys who jumped into the bandwagon, proving once again our expertise in imitation – the great gaya-gaya?
Will we eventually get tired of Facebook and move on to the next big thing as a matter of course? In the article “Internet archeologists have found remnants of this "Friendster" civilization” Robert Plattbell says, “these online social networking sites go though phases, and already I think Facebook is going the way of Myspace, Friendster, AOL, Prodigy (remember that?), Newsgoups, etc. Twitter will be next. The half-life of these things seems to be about 3-4 years, but getting shorter with each iteration. I suspect in 10 years, a social networking site can be launched in the morning, peak at noon and be "so 20 minutes ago" by sundown.” There will always be younger, newer, better looking SNS sites in the future, wooing us, putting its best foot forward. Facebook needs to prove that it gets better as it ages for the fickle-minded Pinoy to stay faithful. Do Facebook Fee Rumors Contain a Kernel of Truth? By Sylvia Cochran http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2624451/do_facebook_fee_rumors_contain_a_kernel.html?cat=15 http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/more-details-on-todays-outage/431441338919 http://www.theonion.com/video/internet-archaeologists-find-ruins-of-friendster-c,14389/
The numbers prove it, our daily routines show it – we are in love with Facebook. Why not, it provides for our communication needs the way we Filipinos like it – instant, simultaneous and best of all free (don’t we love free stuff?). Previous chapters in this wiki have discussed Facebook’s cultural significance to Filipino culture. Simply put, Facebook feeds our Filipinoness. While Facebook is undoubtedly significant, its effects may be both positive and negative. The more than eight million Filipino users may be oblivious to FB’s flaws today - blinded by our overflowing love with it - but the future may tell a different story.
The final topic in this chapter will look into the future of Facebook and the possible reasons and implications of a golden wedding anniversary or a break-up. Are we going to stick with FB for better or for worse or will we sing “you’re only someone that I used to love” in the future?
Pre-nuptial agreement
We haven’t paid for a date, it is never even dutch. The fact that Facebook is free is perhaps the biggest reason why millions of Filipinos love it. Its tagline says, it’s free and always will be. It is a one-sided financial agreement that lets us enjoy FB and all its application for free. We probably don’t care how it gets the money to spend for us but rumors that FB will soon charge fees created quite a ripple. Facebook has continually denied these rumors and dismissed them as malware.
In Sylvia Cochran’s article however, she asks if there might be some kernel of truth to these persistent rumors. She cited an interview with FB’s Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg. “Responding to the already well known question about the Facebook charge or fee, she responds by stating "...no, we are not planning on charging a basic fee for our basic services." She fails to explain what basic services are.” Cochran also mentioned a possible precedent in the case of NetZero which promised free Internet access only to charge users after two years.
A pre-nuptial agreement might be in order before we take the leap. We should definitely look into the fineprint before agreeing to anything. Facebook use might be free, but applications and games might be charged in the future. What then would happen to our farms and restaurants? Charging fees, regardless of the amount, would spell the end of our relationship with Facebook.
In need of Viagra Last September 23, Facebook suffered a malfunction. It was down or unreachable for many users, spawning internet jokes that productivity was up in the country and we finally pushed through with the long-delayed trip to the gym. While it didn’t last long – the site was up again on the same day – it was quite unnerving for millions of its users. We were, afterall, worried about our produce in Farmville, they need to be harvested lest they’d go waste.
Robert Johnson from Facebook Engineering came up with an apology and an explanation. According to him, “the key flaw that caused this outage to be so severe was an unfortunate handling of an error condition. An automated system for verifying configuration values ended up causing much more damage than it fixed.” He went on to explain the technical details further and added that they have already made the corrections.
Do I hear a collective “ha?!” from Pinoys?
The praning in us wonders if this is an isolated situation or is it an indication of things to come. With millions of concurrent users, can FB stay up or would it soon need a Viagra? Patience isn’t one of our strongest virtues and we are usually hard to please. A performance malfunction will not be tolerated and we might find ourselves back in the dating market sooner than later.
Irreconcilable differences
We all got into this love affair with levelled expectations and mutual intentions. We want our networks – friends and family – to know what we had for breakfast. They can then “like” it or suggest a better omelette recipe. The sheer number of Filipino FB users however, creates an instant audience. With the current trends, FB may very well be our sari-sari store online. If I want to sell something, all I need to do is tag my friends. If I have a hundred friends who each have a hundred friends, that’s ten thousand potential buyers. Do we want it though? Isn’t it quite annoying to be tagged for almost anything, flooding even our email accounts?
Using Facebook as a venue for news is also double-edged. While it has proven to be useful and effective at times (Ondoy online news exchange), what credibility would a post have that answers the question “what‘s on your mind?” Can we really separate news from tsismis?
Using Facebook as a platform for news and business may be a natural progression given the number of users and the amount of time we spend logged in. Facebook users are captive audiences and we can only imagine what enterprising organizations and individuals may come up with in the future. But an evolution of Facebook into something other than a social networking site may not augur well for Filipinos. We want it simple and we want fun. Perhaps the ability of the users to do whatever they want on Facebook, a feature that spells the success of FB, could necessitate another round of levelling of expectations.
It’s Not You, It’s Me
Facebook may be perfect. But so was Friendster a few years ago. But Friendster was quickly set aside in favour of MySpace and Facebook. Today, Friendster is but a distant memory. Why the shift? Are we technically savvy users who look into the management, ease of use, layout and design? Or are we just being true-blue Pinoys who jumped into the bandwagon, proving once again our expertise in imitation – the great gaya-gaya?
Will we eventually get tired of Facebook and move on to the next big thing as a matter of course?
In the article “Internet archeologists have found remnants of this "Friendster" civilization” Robert Plattbell says, “these online social networking sites go though phases, and already I think Facebook is going the way of Myspace, Friendster, AOL, Prodigy (remember that?), Newsgoups, etc. Twitter will be next. The half-life of these things seems to be about 3-4 years, but getting shorter with each iteration. I suspect in 10 years, a social networking site can be launched in the morning, peak at noon and be "so 20 minutes ago" by sundown.”
There will always be younger, newer, better looking SNS sites in the future, wooing us, putting its best foot forward. Facebook needs to prove that it gets better as it ages for the fickle-minded Pinoy to stay faithful.
Do Facebook Fee Rumors Contain a Kernel of Truth? By Sylvia Cochran
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2624451/do_facebook_fee_rumors_contain_a_kernel.html?cat=15
http://www.facebook.com/notes/facebook-engineering/more-details-on-todays-outage/431441338919
http://www.theonion.com/video/internet-archaeologists-find-ruins-of-friendster-c,14389/