The Power of Facebook
04. Jan, 2009 
5 Comments
If you’re wondering why I’m not on Facebook and why there is no Ask Miss A group, Facebook disabled my account without warning. Must have been all those lewd messages I was sending! No, I think it has something to do with the fact that I was using Facebook for my business. My very small business. In this economy, a lot of people hope to grow their business by going on Facebook to meet new people and increase awareness of their products and services. Facebook would rather businesses buy ads. I’m a small business owner– give me a break. It’s not like I’m Wal-Mart. I’m happy to purchase ads once my business has grown.
Ads are great, but when you are a small business owner, you are your business. Your contacts are vital to your business. Staying in contact with clients and networking is essential and Facebook is a great way to do both. It seems as if Facebook didn’t take this into consideration when they created their business model, and now they are upset that personal branding has taken over traditional advertising on their site.
You also get in trouble for “friending” too many people. 5,000 is the maximum number of friends you can have. I don’t see the harm in friending people with whom you share mutual friends. I think it’s great that we are finally able to jump the Six Degrees of Separation. People have the option of not accepting your “Facebook friendship”, and many are happy to meet new people, so I don’t see the harm. In contrast, Twitter is much more open-minded. You can follow as many people as you like.
Having my account disabled opened my eyes to how dependent we have all become on Facebook. It’s scary to think that Facebook has control over years of photos, connections to long lost friends — many of whom haven’t made it into our phone or address book yet, and ability to do business in many cases. I’m usually against government regulation, but I’m starting to think that the government might be a bit more fair than those making arbitrary rules at Facebook. At some point, I wonder if the government won’t have to step in and establish some guidelines.
We’ll see if Facebook reinstates my account. If not, I may have to learn to live without it as I don’t see the point in putting in the time to create a new account, upload photos, create groups and re-friend everyone if I’m going to remain at Facebook’s mercy. We as Facebook users may not have created Facebook, but we do make it the community that it is today. It’s a shame that the effort we put in to create our value for ourselves and the Facebook community doesn’t give us any rights, or a degree of ownership over what we’ve created.
In the end, I believe in capitalism, and I think that these silly rules have created a niche for another social utility to come in to the market. It’s fair to say that those who start a facebook account at a young age, may in the future have well over 5,000 friends who they will want to stay connected with for life. It’s also clear that small business owners would gladly have the opportunity to reach more than 5,000 virtual friends. It will all sort itself out, but in the meantime I and many other small business owners must adapt to the tools currently available.
- Miss A
P.S. If you need to contact me, please email me at missa@askmissa.com.
Whoa, really? Facebook has so many restrictions these days… they lost me when they labeled breastfeeding obscene.
Here from DC Blogs.
Your group is still there. Link is http://www.facebook.com/groups/edit.php?members&gid=28245400699 if anybody else wants to join.
Sorry about your profile. I hope they reinstate it. The social networks have all sorts of rules about people connecting, when really there should be no rules. LinkedIn still says 500+ no matter how many you have, FB has a 5000 ppl limit even though many exceed it, and Twitter doesn’t let you follow too many more than follow you (like 2000 max or something).
There is a more general issue here – who owns the links, pics, words, and connections – you or Facebook? The geek community is debating this. Facebook is not Google searchable; LinkedIn is, Twitter is, etc. So where’s the “Facebook backup”? There is none. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could back up your Facebook profile, and then take that “meta file” with you back to Facebook after going away for a while, or to the next awesome social network site? Yup.
I have recieved repeated warnings from Facebook. What for? They won’t tell me. All I know is that my posted events stopped showing up. For how long? They won’t tell me. So, I was put on a probationary period, the length of time of which they would not inform me of. If I continued to engage in said activity, I risk my account being suspended. When I wrote to Facebook to ask about it and get more details, they said no, they would not be restoring my account for me, and that their security system is automated and runs off an algorithm of some kind to keep it random and unpredictable. I responded by asking what they are doing to address their obviously dysfunctional security system and received no response. Facebook security SUCKS.
I think Facebook is, hands-down, the best social networking site on the internet to this day. The site distributes information while maintaining a level of personal integrity and privacy, ideal when attempting to make contacts on the web.
Facebook has helped me increase my fanbase momentously.
However, it’s appalling customer service has left me hanging for an entire business week after I was hacked by someone using a 419 scam to beg my friends for money.
I have been incessantly emailing the Facebook team about my situation, to no avail. The one email I received from Dori, a member of the team, gave me a glimmer of hope, that slowly faded as days went by and no attempt to contact was returned.
From a site as notable as Facebook, this was frankly disappointing, and put a severe damper on my enthusiasm for the site.
What’s more, as I am preparing for a huge music gig in august, trying to advertise my blog, gain employment as a writer in a newspaper in Boulder, and trying to find roommates at a new school, I do not have access to the most useful social networking tool I have, and it has been taken away unfairly.
Hacking is clearly not something to be taken lightly, but neither are 25 emails from a pissed-off student. who relies on Facebook for many aspects of her life.
From a corporation as noted and celebrated by the media, I would have expected more.
http://thewarly.blogspot.com/2009/07/facebook-fails.html