hedwards: FB is huge because companies like GOG make people use it.
Starmaker: Nope, they are huge because
<i>people</i> use it. FFS, Google Plus is famous for (their failure of) not having had corporate accounts when it launched. I mean, you could say it was exactly the reason they aren't as popular as facebook, but I seriously doubt they could've committed a blunder this large. No one signs up for a social network to (sorry for the dirty words) "engage with brands" - rather, a brand wants to, figuratively speaking, quietly photobomb FB users' party pix, to position itself as yet another friend.
The main draw of FB is that it's huge. It's highly likely that somebody that you want to contact has an account there. There are other options such as QQ, but none of them have as many users. And at this point, it's really hard for folks that have accounts for years to move them elsewhere or to knowingly consent to policy changes as they don't necessarily remember what they've posted.
Social networks, like ad networks, depend a great deal on the number of people there.
hedwards: FB itself will blow over eventually. But, the bottom line is that GOG is supposed to be better than this. They used to be cool, they used to understand that people are not fond of standard practices and they did some cool stuff. But, this is just ridiculous.
Starmaker: Who isn't fond of standard practices - GOG's facebook followers? Why can't other facebook haters deal with the idea that some things are just
not for us? Facebook users are also people, and they might not want to check every damn forum every damn day, and GOG needs to market to them. Yes, FB will blow over - and when it does and maintaining a facebook presence becomes unprofitable, GOG will leave that pos for the next big thing. But we're here and now, and it's still huge, and GOG wants more existing facebook users to opt in to receive promo alerts and release announcements. If you prefer a communications channel that does not insult your intelligence, [url=http://feed://www.gog.com/frontpage/rss]there is one[/i][/url].
Why should we have to? I'm not a hater because I hate FB, I hate FB for completely legitimate reasons.
Ultimately when organizations like GOG use FB for exclusives, it makes it less and less viable to avoid FB. This isn't fundamentally different from the internet which is functionally mandatory whether or not you want to be online. There's an increasing number of services that are only available online.
GOG didn't used to do this, this is a new thing in the last year or so, which is to say they were growing like gangbusters AND THEN they decided to engage in this FB bullshit. They've had a FB account for quite a while, but they weren't pressuring people to have and use one.
hedwards: I've had numerous people over the years stop responding to me because they were too fucking lazy to deal with even short emails.
HereForTheBeer: Sums up my gripe, though I suppose it's not so much about facebook but instead the people who have made it their near-exclusive form of personal contact. The lack of a facebook account means I'm no longer worthy of being part of one's life? Guess I know what kind of friend that is..
I'd rather not have this in common with you. But, OTOH, I guess it's nice that I'm not the only one. I'd prefer to have something more constructive in common.
To be fair though, most of those people aren't the most thoughtful people anyways, but it's still rather annoying to waste time making a friend and then learn that FB is a prerequisite at some point.
jjsimp: I hate everything about it. I have an account, but I don't use it. I maybe login once a month. The main thing that pisses me off is how others can post pictures of you and tag you. If I wanted a picture connected to my account, I would upload it myself.
Everyone I know uses it an always assume I read some bit of news they posted on Facebook. Sorry sis, I don't read Facebook nor do I want to read Facebook.
If not for that and those damned "like button"spies all over the net I wouldn't care one way or the other. What we need is legislation requiring that people opt into being tagged.
