Not exactly ....
What's really dumb? People who aren't able to consider all the possibilities before spouting off negative comments on products or services they clearly haven't used enough to form a valid opinion!
I'd be among the first to agree that there are a LOT of negative points surrounding Facebook. I think most of the games on it are pointless time-wasters really designed to grab your personal info for marketing purposes. I think a whole lot of people waste their time uploading 50 pictures a month of their pet dog or cat and generally have far too high an opinion of how interested others will be in their "content". And I think it's REALLY annoying that FB won't allow third parties to develop add-ons or alternate UIs for Facebook without actively taking steps to break them.
All of that being said, I DON'T think Facebook is anything like AOL and I see quite a few people out there making great use of it.
For example, I do some writing for a tech. blog and the editorial staff has a private FB group set up as the "hub" for our activities. People post status updates to let everyone else know what story they've decided to start writing a draft of (so we don't duplicate any efforts), and the owners make all of their important announcements there. We can comment on stories easily too, or post links to possible topics for future articles. All in all, a really good FREE resource for keeping all of us organized.
I'm also a member of a car owners' group on Facebook and it, too, is pretty useful. The problem with most traditional message forums out there for car enthusiasts is they're paid for by vendors. That means individuals are censored, to an extent, if they try to speak badly about their experience with products sold by supporting vendors, and sometimes the positives of a product are inflated too. On a private, free area on FB, it's possible to tell people how things REALLY are and warn against purchasing from questionable individuals on other forums, etc. It's also a handy one-stop place for people to post photos and organize car shows or other events.
Need more examples? Most of my FB friends like to share URLs to items of interest to our group. It serves as kind of my daily "launching point" when I want to browse interesting news topics, because people who I know in real life and who really share my interests recommend them personally.
Facebook is a tool, and like any tool, can be misused, over-used, or used dangerously if one isn't familiar with its potential pitfalls. But there's a reason Cisco's recent survey on Internet usage revealed 90% of business professionals and students under the age of 30 have a Facebook account.
Facebook is dumb. When are people going to wake up and realize that Facebook has just reversed the internet back into AOL.
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I wouldn't waste my time replying, but this was just too screwed-up a statement to let it slide.....
How many companies out there HAVE a CEO who is a good enough public speaker and presenter to go out on stage on a regular basis and give a good demo of all of the company's new products, and make it exciting enough so he/she packs any venue the talks are given in?
How many CEOs even have the motivation to do such a thing, if they were capable of it?
If you gave Jobs credit for absolutely *nothing* else, I think you'd have to say his big success story revolves around knowing how to market what his company does!
Really, anyone could have done what he did.
The team comes up with a product and he trots on stage....the people say Ouuuuu and Ahhhhh
