i saw somewhere that the average facebook user is worth $3.96 USD per year. facebook and google think they can determine who is real and they have no use, and thus no place, for anyone that does not have a real name (so is Lady Gaga worthless?) . our community sees that when facebook purges “fake” accounts or when google plus says you aren’t real enough to have an account
one thing i have learned from the virtual world community is that it doesn’t matter what your real name is, it doesn’t matter if you’re tall or white or a Jew (but do stay away from french canadians, yikes!). i have run into some really awesome people who have helped me grow and who have given of their real time to help me with online conundrums
it’s what you add to the whole that is important
and for sure not what some algorithms determines your value is. along that line i found it interesting to see what Quantcast thinks of you – the readers of this blog
i don’t know if they think you are worth $3.96 per year – i know you are priceless to me =)
What really gets to me about FB is the hypocrisy. They demand that people use their real world information. Yet allow corporations to have accounts. Since when was a corporation a “real person” capable of socializing? When was the last time Micro$oft sat down and joined you for for the Saturday ball game? How did IBM do at Wednesday’s Bridge game? Have you ever gone for a walk on the beach with CTV? Had a water cooler chat with Ford?
Sarge Misfit
7 May 12 at 11:06 am
What gets me is I keep running into situations where people expect me to have a Facebook account and seem to miss a heart beat and go silent when I let them know I don’t. How does one company that came from nowhere get control of so many minds so quickly?
Gaga is fake name but I like it so there is a problem?
Or is it just New World Facebook Order that is the problem?
Oh hell, they aint even worth my mention!
Gaga
7 May 12 at 11:58 am
funny you say that Sarge, but i kicked Microsoft’s butt in a poker game the other night – in the words of Mitt Romney “Corporations are people, my friend” =p
yeah Gaga, you are a big fake like me and as such, offer no value to the world – go do something serious like MafiaWars or Farmville! =p
i’m going back to doing something valuable and forget all this virtual world baloney – look out Angry Birds, here i come!
Ener Hax
7 May 12 at 12:06 pm
Agree with GaGa on Facebook more and more. I do still have an account there, but block everything except my old gang. I do like throwing a banana into their spyware algorithms though. Sure I’m really that guy from Wetwang UK who lives in F***king Austria. The ads I get on FB are a hoot as a result. I’ll likely trash my account there soon. I am slowly filtering goggle out of my life too. I use to be proud of google and such. And yay for those lovely French Canadians, though stealing them and bringing them to the sunshine is a good idea in Winter.(eeekkk! its cold up there then for us Southern fellas.)
Araxie Longoar
7 May 12 at 12:54 pm
I got to wondering about that $3.96 valuation. Just the fact that people will put a monetary value on a person is disturbing. And yes, I know, that amount is about how much revenue FaceBorg makes per user from selling their info. Its still disturbing.
But, here’s what I was wondering. Is that US$3.96 a decrease in value compared to before they joined?
Sarge Misfit
7 May 12 at 3:02 pm
well you mentioned being a hooker on another post (lol, i don’t think you said hooker but something like that)
forget faceboo, i’d pay at least a couple of toonies and a loonie for you! =)
Ener Hax
7 May 12 at 7:13 pm
LOL Sarge & Gaga… You two and everyone here are more real than 3/4′s of the “folks” that Babble on in FB anyways !
I never have, nor will I ever put my RL into some Social Site and let people make money off it. While I won’t ever use such an insanely stupid, yes I said that “stupid” system that promotes & pushes you to dispense with your privacy and steal your time and manipulate you like sheeple into herds. Off to the slaughter while a few fellas are laughing all the way to the bank.
I have read reports fairly recently that people are not getting jobs because they do not have Social Site accounts or if they refuse to provide their Social Site account names to be searched. Lesson Here: If an employer wants your Social Site info, do you really want to work for a company that wants to know what you blog and what you did and who you talk to ??? Other’s have reported that they fail to get job’s or credit because they’re searched on the Internet and use that as a filter. People have lost jobs because of their postings (could be good but there is always a dark side). My Favourite one was a recent article (sorry don’t have link but likely searchable) was someone was not searchable on the Internet and had no FB / Google+ blog’s, the employer’s HR dept decided that they “must be hiding something” therefore they refused the hire and were even dumb enough to tell the candidate that.
I suppose the upside is: Before you go on a blind date you can search the person and see what they have in their heads. Need a Lawyer, find one then search FB and everything to find out what kind of lawyer they are. Want to work for a company, Search the social sites on the manager’s, owners & operators… Wanna work for a company where the owner says all his staff are morons and she can’t stand so & so or what person X wears ….
There have been “genius moments” in Facebook and similar systems where criminals have actually blogged about their criminal exploits. One such good case example is the Bank Robber’s who got away with it and the copper’s had no clue till a couple of weeks later one of the Bank Robber’s posted the video he took while they were robbing the bank. Now those are the sheeple that belong on Facebook but I’m not sure if a Federal Prison allows them Facebook Access. Google it LOL :)
Something that possibly a few are not quite 100% aware of, but once you have posted material on any site in the Internet, it’s logged, cached and stored for future generations to laugh at. You can’t wipe it, make it go away or clear it. As far as I am aware there is only 1 legit way of doing so, and that involves the Government(s) and doing data scrubs which as you can well image, isn’t something that get’s done too easily.
We are individual’s, therefore each and everyone of us is unique & priceless. We are NOT Sheeple ! We only have one life and it is special, not a demographic to be manipulated, or a value based on keystrokes & blog size.
[/step off soap box] LOL
WhiteStar
7 May 12 at 7:43 pm
“… once you have posted material on any site in the Internet, it’s logged, cached and stored for future generations to laugh at. You can’t wipe it, make it go away or clear it. … ”
Exactly!
Makes an old adage even more relevant today than it has been over unknown hundreds of years.
“If you can’t say something nice, then don’t say anything at all.”
Sarge Misfit
7 May 12 at 8:22 pm
Hey WS
You crack me up!
But you hit the nail on the head at the same time. I too have heard of people not getting the job because they have no FB – how bad it that?!
History is full of McCarthyite madmen that wanna manipulate humanity for their own power and greed.
But it also reminds me of Neuromancer, William Gibson’s prophetic novel published in 1984( he was the guy who coined the word “Cyberspace” I do believe). In that story, where people lived out lives as avatars in virtual space ( much like some of us!), an AI was stalking the avatar of the story’s main character, Henery Case through virtual worlds and, like some virus (or Google or FB), it just seemed to know more about it’s target subject than it should have known. It had power over him even to the point of harming him in the real world. Thus, the moral is, as WS pointed out, what you make known on FB or the Internet is there forever!
You think no AI will ever stalk you?
Get real, it’s already happening and has been for longer than you might think. There are mega databases storing it all up and I don’t just mean the CIA or KGB. We are becoming the most spied on generation of all time!
And its all done in the name of protecting us – Piff!
And the rest!
Gaga
7 May 12 at 9:09 pm
” … There are mega databases storing it all up and I don’t just mean the CIA or KGB. We are becoming the most spied on generation of all time!
And its all done in the name of protecting us … ”
I have to disagree.
The corporations have far more data on us than any government. For the simple fact that corporations ‘share’ (read ‘sell’) that data back and forth between each other while gov’t agencies don’t do so over jurisdictional turf.
And so it actually is done to protect us. The way a rancher would protect his livelihood, the cattle.
Sarge Misfit
7 May 12 at 10:23 pm
Sorry Sarge. You lost me a bit there. You disagreed then seemed to agree, lol
What did I miss?
Gaga
8 May 12 at 7:34 am
My bad, Gaga, I misinterpreted what you had posted. I thought you were saying that the governments and their agencies, such as KGB and CIA has the mega-databases :-) So, yes, we agree and my own posting simply expands on yours as a result.
Sarge Misfit
8 May 12 at 9:12 am
I wonder, if you could prove to facebook that your pseudonym account was worth more then $3.69 to them, then they would keep your pseudonym account active.
Their argument is that the real people are worth money to them (thus have a value to them) and that is why they keep them, where as pseudonym accounts are worthless to them so they get rid of them. If the pseudonym accounts were shown to be valuable, then they might keep them. After all, this is really what they are doing for corporate accounts, these are similar to a pseudonym account but are worth money to facebook and that is why they allow them to exist.
Paul
8 May 12 at 9:58 am
I’m pretty sure that if a job wanted to have my fartbook account in order to hire me I’d immediately create an account and post some seriously disturbed sh*t just for the comedy value.
ELQ
8 May 12 at 1:02 pm
Facebook discrimination. It’s stupid, plain and simple.
It’s like looking down on someone because they don’t have a smart phone or cable tv (I have neither, by the way). Or not hiring someone because they don’t like your favorite sports team.
I would be MORE likely to hire someone who understands the potential dangers of putting personal information on a website that shares it with the world, and who therefore shuns social media or at least uses it responsibly (is there such a thing?)
~~~
FB, in my own opinion, is probably the worst offender in the history of the Internet when it comes to privacy violations (if you don’t believe me, spend some time with a search engine and look at the dozens of lawsuits and millions of dollars in settlements that FB has paid out).
And Google, by the way, is headed in the same direction, though I still use their search engine occasionally. Their old slogan of “We’re not evil” may or may not still apply.
If you DO have a FaceBOO account, it behooves you to place little or no personal information on it, due to the fact that it is searched thousands of times a day by would-be identify thieves, scammers, and even the CIA and the FBI. No, I’m not paranoid. I’m just reminding you that FB is basically a freakin’ huge billboard about as big as the sky, for all to see. And it can be used against you by predators, identity thieves, employers, insurance companies, etc.
(I used to have a Facebook account, which I used mostly to help keep in touch with soldier friends overseas. It is now deactivated, and shall remain that way. I’d “close” it, but we all know FB keeps the data forever, so what’s the point?).
I think FB has its place, for SOME people in SOME circumstances. For me, the risks (and wasted time online) far outweigh any supposed benefits. But I refuse to be a participant, for the above reasons, and because they want me to post personal information, which they often sell to 3rd parties, while paying me exactly zero dollars.
Be very wary of any site or platform that has a privacy policy longer than 100 words or impossible to understand without a team of lawyers. How hard is it for a company to just say “We will NEVER share your information with ANYONE, in any form whatsoever, unless you expressly opt-IN.”? Wow, wouldn’t that be refreshing?
I also don’t get the insane-ness (is that a word?) of giving OTHER websites your FB login and password so you can “LOGIN HERE WITH YOUR FACEBOOK ACCOUNT!!!!” Yeah, like I trust them any more than I do Zuckenboy.
~~~
Did you see a while back that France has banned the mention of Facebook on all news stories (unless the story is about FB itself)? They said (and I paraphrase here) they refuse to give free publicity to a billionaire corporation that gives them nothing in return, and that spouting FB-this and FB-that is NOT to be used in the place of real, actual reporting. And, after all, is saying “go the their Facebook page at….” at the end of every news story a good thing? NO.
Go, Team France!
Ever notice that when someone is arrested, found murdered, etc., it’s usually their FB photo which immediately gets plastered all over the media? (Better make sure you have your best photos on there, I guess!) What happens when someone dies? Does their FB page remain up forever, a kind of surreal reminder of them (the answer to that question is complicated, but FB has this form: http://www.facebook.com/help/contact/?id=305593649477238 )
~~~
I think it sucks that FB discrimated against Ener and other “avatars.” I thought the Internet was the last bastion of (responsible) freedom of speech? And how can you have that without some degree of anonymity? FB and social sites know all about YOU, but what do you know about their emloyees who have access to your data, on multiple redundant servers? Having said that, a company has the right to exclude anyone they want (“We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone”), just as you can opt not to hire someone or not hang out with them. But FB’s explanation of avatar-discrimination is a bit nebulous and self-serving, says I.
As Ener and others have already said, who cares what your “real” name or address or age or eye color is? That information belongs in Real Life, F2F (Face To Face), meat-space, or whatever you call it… not on the Internet, where it can be potentially abused by Very Bad People.
But, not to worry. Remember when personal home pages were all the rage? Or an AOL account? Or Yahoo chat? When was the last time you visited MySpace? FB one day will fall into relative obscurity. Unfortunately it will probably be around longer than its fallen predecessors, so be careful out there. And do be careful of The Next Big Thing That Swallows The Internet and Your Free Time, lol.
I’ve already blabbed too long, and I apologize. We already have perfectly good “identities,” based on our Avatar names, looks, and speech. What more do you really need?
Oh, by the way, LinkedIn is also a big target for identity thieves, so be careful there, also. When you post your past employers, schools, graduation dates, etc., that is a gold mine for the baddies. *Giggles*
The meek might inherit the earth, but the paranoid will outlive them.
DreamWalker
8 May 12 at 3:27 pm
did you forget your blog password? this should be a post!!! =p
Ener Hax
8 May 12 at 3:49 pm
i know, i know… i guess i’ve been saving up tooo long for an opportunity to bash the Zucker! *giggles*
DreamWalker
8 May 12 at 3:56 pm