Omniblog

This is a comment I recently posted to a friend’s status about, well, broken ice makers and tea using Facebook’s new Email reply feature.

I was using Gmail when I did it, so I am not sure if other email providers would cause this same issue.

So, it does work, but they obviously have some kinks to work out.

Facebook Email Reply – Use at your own discretion and don’t expect it to look pretty.

Dear Adobe and posters on FML,

1. I’m starting to think the “Me and my spouse were having sex, when they stopped so they could harvest their crops in Farmwhatever in Facebook” posts on FML are fake. I mean, sure there are some really stupid people out there, but still, this is a little ridiculous. On the flip side, they could be true, and if they are, then I think my head just exploded.

2. Adobe – You’ve had long enough. Isn’t it about time you released a 64-bit Flash Player? I think Flash 10 is done. So, chip-chop with 64-bit.

Sincerely,
-Me

Facebook Usernames are Coming!

I had a totally clever post about this whole thing in my head and then once I decided to write this blog post I though “Who the hell cares?” If you do a search, there’s a blog post that someone did outlining what might happen when this all takes effect. Wow, I’m sorry that you wasted your time with that blog post Mr/Mrs/Ms Blogger. I did this one in a lot less time, and got my point across. Is it humorous, yes, but kinda stupid IMO.

As far as user names: MySpace does this, and did this very early on, LinkedIn does this, Flickr does this, a lot of other sites do this.

Attention people freaking out: Get a damn life. I think I see Perez Hilton hitting on Ashley Simpson’s husband. Now, go, fetch and have fun.

This is nothing new and innovative. Facebook is simply playing catch-up.

Yea, I’m done. Carry on, nothing to see here.

Recently, someone at Time decided to write an article expressing their opinion on what not to do on Facebook. A list of 10 things that are big nono’s if you don’t want to lose friends, respect, or anything else.

“How Not to be Hated on Facebook” – Time.com.

After reading said article, my first thought was “This should be, well, read the subject of this Blog post.”

Now, I will give them some credit on a few things that do make some sense, but 98% of it is just way off base, IMO.

Let’s start at #1 “Stop taking quizzes….”

• These have existed for quite some time in other various formats, and are just plain silly. They are nothing new, just new to Facebook. Sure, most people probably don’t care what fruit you are, but at the same time, they’re all in fun. I am guilty of doing a few just to see what the outcome is. No one should remove you as a friend because you choose to have fun on Facebook. God forbid we have fun. Your friends can also click something to make the results not publish. I’ve done that on a few to spare my friends the spam, but if the outcome is somewhat funny, sure, I’ll publish the results.

#2 (This one probably irritates me the most) “If you sync your Twitter account to Facebook so that you fill others’ news feeds with a constant stream of mundane updates and references to people with little @ symbols before their names, be prepared for people to de-friend you”

• Holy shit. Did I just read that? Hello, what age are we in again? Last I checked, Twitter was mini updates about oneself without all the Facebook garbage. Plus, it’s a great RSS replacement. So, if there are people on your friends list that don’t understand what Twitter is, and there were some on mine but I helped them out, then for the love of technology, explain it to them. I have 2 friends on Facebook that post the occasional Twitter type message in their status (with the Twitter @), and I don’t care. What do you think Facebook is you fuckchimp? It’s full of updates without the Twitterish stuff, or did you miss the part of “Facebook Status”? Sounds like you did. Thanks for trying to make people understand that Twitter and Facebook can’t coexist. You failed.
• Besides, who the hell would de-friend you because you sync up your Facebook and Twitter. Some friend you have there, eh? Facebook is full of silly updates like *gasp* Twitter. I think my head just exploded from reading this one.
• Also, most people I know don’t sync every single retweet or anything else up with their Facebook. They use their own judgement on what to publish to both, and what to leave on just Twitter or just Facebook.

#3 “Don’t friend someone you don’t actually know”

• Now, 99.9% of the time, I would agree with this one; however, with the explosion of friend type games on Facebook like Mafia Wars, there are groups to have people add others to their friends list for the sole purpose of growing their little family in the game. Chances are, most of your friends don’t play. So, you are going to add complete strangers. Is it risky? Sure, but I have not had a single privacy issue with these people I add. We only add each other for one purpose. I block their updates, and I’ve had a few make complete inane comments about something I posted, so I removed them from my friends list. But in general, yea this is a bad idea. However use your discretion on who you add, but then again, you have a brain and probably already know this.

#4 “If you must friend someone you don’t know, include a message explaining why you are doing so. For example, ‘Hi, I’m your cousin’s roommate!’ would suffice.”

• I have one word to say about this, and then I will leave it alone: “Duh” Moving on…

#5 “Actually, no. Why would your cousin’s roommate want to be your friend? That’s still weird.”

• You could’ve rolled #3, #4, and #5 all into one list item. I think you are stretching to find 10 things not to do in Facebook, so you take one item and stretch it to 3 because you can’t think of 2 other things to write. Again, you fail. And, unfortunately I must use this phrase: epic fail.

#6 “Don’t invite people to events if they don’t live in your city. I’m glad you still live in our old college town, but guess what? I don’t. Even if I did, I still wouldn’t waste my Friday night listening to you play music at that vegan coffee shop I frequented when I was 19 because I couldn’t get into bars.”

• Ok, I have a real issue with this one too. This person who wrote this sounds like Cameron from Ferris Bueller “If you stuck a lump of coal up this person’s ass, in 2 weeks you’d have a diamond.” God, lighten up. Chances are they did a blanket invite so they didn’t have to figure out who to invite and who not to invite. I’ve gotten some pretty cool invites to some events that were not in Austin that I actually thought about going to. Example: a friend of mine from high school, his band was playing with Tenacious D for NYE in LA. That would’ve been a blast.
• Besides, how unsupportive can you be of your friends. If you don’t like them, nor like what they do, why did you add them in the first place? You are sounding more stupid with each number. “[W]ouldn’t waste my time…”, you can politely click “No” in the invite and move on. I do it. So can you. I have more to write on this, but it’s all garbled in my head, so I will move on. I think you all get my point.

#7 “I’m sorry your grandfather died of emphysema, but I will not join your ’cause.’”

• See above: unsupportive. Yes, I do understand the reasoning here, but they just lost someone they loved, and that was close to them. I have not really gotten many of these cause invitations for the reason listed here. Again, you can politely click “No” and move on.

#8 “Make sure all your photos are rotated in the proper direction. How will people know how fun your Fourth of July barbecue was if every picture looks like you fell over?”

• Ok, this one I do agree with 100%.

#9 “If you create a group called ‘Lost my cell phone; need your numbers!,’ I will join, but I won’t give you my number.”

• Can I just say something: If you, yes you – author of this article, have friends that do this, then, well, ugh. Plus, if they are your friend, they should have other ways of contacting you besides Facebook. Chances are they will send an email outside of Facebook requesting numbers or what not. or you will have common friends and it will trickle down that way. Without getting really mean, I am just going to leave it at that and move on to the last one.

#10 “Cryptic status updates about your mental state — ‘Rachel is trying so hard,’ ‘Rachel wishes things were different,’ ‘Rachel is starting her life over’ — don’t make you sound intriguing, just lonely and pathetic.”

• Fortunately I kind of agree with this one too, however most of the people I know don’t do this. Sounds like the author of this article has some pretty interesting friends.

That’s it, I think I figured it out. The author of this article has friends that have done one of the ten things listed here at some point, and so they figured they’d write an article about it. I think most of the stuff listed here has probably happened to most of us, but I think all ten things listed here have probably only happened to the author.

Be careful with your Facebook kids, use your discretion and common sense with anything: status updates, pictures, even your cell phone number.

There are more articles from Time on Facebook, and I will surely be commenting on those in the coming days. They are just as much fun to read as this one.

Rule #1: No pooftahs.

Question #1: Should one’s Facebook status and Twitter updates be the same?

Rule #2: No pooftahs.

Question #2: If so, why, or if not, why?

Rule #3: I don’t want to catch anybody not drinking….

Question #3: Which do you prefer, or do you consider them separate entities and treat them both the same? (so to speak)

Me? I keep them as separate as possible. They do overlap every once in a while. For example, I will see something of interest from someone I follow on Twitter. That link will find its way to my Facebook.

I do not use a site to update every possible status on Facebook, Twitter, etc at the same time as my audiences between Twitter and Facebook are different.

I post a lot more stuff about MMOs (WoW especially) on Twitter. I post more geeky stuff on Twitter, period.

I do have one thing that is a semi-cross between the two. I made a Facebook page blog, but it’s not gaining ground on followers, yet. So, blog stuff does mix between the two, but you can easily ignore the update, or not become a fan of the page I have for my blog. (Shameless plug!: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Omniblog/145487225283 – if you are already on Facebook, search for Omniblog, you should find it with all of its 2 fans) I have 1 fan, besides me, and all blog posts get posted as updates to that page.

So, if you want to update both statuses, that’s up to you. But, I will not be enabling cross updates between Twitter and Facebook (thanks but no thanks Tweetdeck).

I do not prefer one over the other. As I stated earlier, I consider them separate entities with separate audiences. Twitter serves its purpose, and Facebook serves its purpose.