Bob Rinderle / Business & Beyond

Seinfeld (1992) On Belonging

Saw this post from @Zee today and thought it is was blog-worthy.

 

Facebook's Lord Of The Flies Moment

A study from Reppler reveals that 47% of Facebook users have profanity on their walls. Of those, 80% have at least one post or comment with profanity from a friend.

Separately, a study from America’s Journal of Men’s Health analyzed the profiles of 225 male undergrad students at one university for references to alcohol, including photos, and found that 85.53% of the profiles contained at least one reference; on average they contained 8.5.

Has Facebook, and social media, with its strong undercurrent of snarkiness and self-centeredness, brought us to a Lord Of The Flies moment in our culture?  The book centers on the conflict between savagery and civilization in an unsupervised, isolated enviroment. 

The obscurity and anonymity that veils and strengthens the increasing vitriol that spews across the Web should be a concern to anyone who hopes for a higher ideal.  And if you think I'm crazy, just trying playing a couple hands of Hearts on Yahoo! without being verbally eviscerated.

Fed Up With Facebook Friends?

Deals site Eversave talked to 400 women about their Facebook relationships and uncovered the love/hate dynamic that exists between women and their online friends; 84% admit to being annoyed.

 
Story source: Jolie O'Dell at Mashable; click on images to enlarge

Facebook's $50B Valuation In Context

Infographic comparing Facebook's valuation with other tech/digital companies.

 

Face Forward

“Just as refinements in mirror crafting led to an increase in self portraits during the Renaissance, Facebook's unrelenting invasion...has led to a new renaissance in portraiture, notable for its creation by people who wouldn't know good art if it friend requested them…. Like all art forms, Facebook portraiture has its own lazy tropes – the laptop camera shot, the blue sky background, the blinding flash in a bathroom mirror – but even these thoughtlessly captured snapshots yield unintended insights about their subjects: How is the photo cropped? Can we see the subject's abs? Why is she giving us the finger?"*

*Doogie Horner; FastCompany

 

Power of Relationships

The following video of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg from Nielsen 360 was publicized in Fast Company and other digital properties with regard to her comments about email going away.  I think that focus misses the real essence of her speech, which is the power of individual relationships and the unlimited ability to connect online.

Facebook Craze-y

It's nice to know someone like MG Siegler has similar feelings about Facebook.  (Maybe I'm not craze-y):

"(Facebook's) grandiose plans are great and all, but as I sit here the night before f8, I find myself wondering something very simple: why does using Facebook frustrate the hell out of me?

As I noted earlier in my farewell to Facebook Lite, I think it's just because I find the service too cluttered and confusing.  The various options menus are a nightmare.  All the privacy settings are beyond confusing.  And while the overall site navigation has improved greatly over the past year (goodbye weird bottom nav bar), I still find myself lost quite often."

So I'm not alone.  Siegler's article: "Why Doesn't Facebook Look Like This?

Zuckerpunched!

Revealing - but not surprising - article from SAI on the founding of Facebook and the alleged, questionable tactics of Mark Zuckerberg.  I'm not willing to draw conclusions from one report, but Facebook has always struck me as a bit suspect and disingenuous in their dealings with users.

Bedrooms: More SMS, Less S&M

A Retrevo survey reveals that 16% of people think it is fine to text during sex.

"Social media is embedded in our lives. It's why people go to a restaurant and check Foursquare before they sit down with their friends," said Manish Rathi, co-founder of Retrevo, a consumer electronics shopping and review site, as reported in Ad Age. 

Bedrooms are the place to get social, but not necessarily for sex.  Retrevo found that 48% of social-media users check or update Facebook or Twitter once they are in bed, and/or before they get out of bed in the morning. That number jumps to 76% for the 25-and-under crowd, with 19% of millennials claiming they check in whenever they wake up during the night.

In-bed social media users also scan the news before leaving the sheets, although increasingly their news does not come from network morning shows; 17% check in before they turn on the TV, and 16% rely on Facebook or Twitter exclusively for their morning news.

"It's what they want to know - it's local and it ties into their social graph," Mr. Rathi said. "Will it replace 'Good Morning America'? Maybe not, but it might play an equal role, especially with breaking news as we've seen."

image credit: Gawker

Facebook Facts & Figures

Facebook.  A long infographic, but cool.  Found via Simon Mainwaring.