Yup … it’s the weekend and the kiddies are bickering once more in the tech blogosphere; or at the very least they are polishing their egos and feelings of self-importance.
It appears to have all started with a post yesterday by Dave Winer explaining why Facebook sucks - like this is something that a lot of people haven’t already been saying. I guess though it takes an A-Lister like Dave to make it real.
Hot on the heels of Dave’s post of course came Robert Scoble bemoaning the fact that he’s not allowed anymore than 5,000 friends in Facebook equating it to locking his rolodex in a trunk. Well jeez Robert that’s what happens when you play in a walled garden where the people running the playground set the rules.
All this A-List angst over a closed system is borderline funny when you consider that these self same folks who downplay the whole idea of there even being an A-List that should be treated differently than the rest of us are the first to line up behind the Web 2.0 customer complaint desk when they have to play by the same rules as the rest of us.
But then as Robert said on Twitter today Facebook should be doing everything they can to make the A-Lister’s a bunch of content little kiddies playing in the sand pile:
Scobleizer said at 10/14/2007 1:01:20 PM
And if Facebook wants “A listers” to hype it up (which they do) then they gotta serve us and make sure we’re happy too.
Please don’t make me gag over such self-importance because as much as you might think that Facebook will live or die because of the hallowed words from the A-List the fact is they will probably be a lot happier once you have all tip toed through the tulips to the next shiny new thing but leaving the hundred’s of thousands of people who followed you to play like nice little kiddies in the walled garden not demanding any special treatment and making them millions of dollars in the process.
Of course all through this I’m important so treat me special byplay, folks on Twitter were treated to a public; at least to those who followed the participants, bickering between our illustrious leaders of the tech blogosphere where Stowe Boyd felt he needed to let us know he needed to respond to Dave Winer and the show went on from there:
stoweboyd said at 10/14/2007 2:57:41 PM
have to respond to Dave Winer’s newest before lunchdavewiner said at 10/14/2007 3:11:18 PM
Stowe Boyd is a creep. I’ve been wanting to say that for quite a long time. Now I have. Onward.stoweboyd said at 10/14/2007 3:11:25 PM
Dave Winer Doesn’t Get Face book: http://tinyurl.com/yteyr9Scobleizer said at 10/14/2007 3:13:59 PM
Stowe Boyd: you’re wrong, but that’s OK. Facebook itself says it’s a “utility.” To me it’s a rolodex.stoweboyd said at 10/14/2007 3:22:39 PM
just because they have dubbed themselves a ‘utility’ doesn’t mean they are a rolodex. Its an interactive space where people meet and talk.stoweboyd said at 10/14/2007 3:33:21 PM
@davewiner - Thanks Dave. Nice. Tasteful. I feel that you don’t get it, but I wasn’t attacking your character or intelligence. Pretty low.stoweboyd said at 10/14/2007 3:35:08 PM
I guess I join the club of people publicly savaged by Dave Winer. Hey, Jason make room!davewiner said at 10/14/2007 3:39:04 PM
@stoweboyd, oh come now. that’s 1/100th of the personal crap you’ve said about me. don’t be such a martyr.stoweboyd said at 10/14/2007 3:59:07 PM
The worst thing I’ve written about you is that I don’t agree with you often. I said this a few months back: http://tinyurl.com/2gvsw4
Yup it’s the weekend and the kiddies need to play …. good thing tomorrow is Monday and we can get back to some real news to write about huh 
Listening to: Eric Clapton/J.J. Cale - The Road to Escondido - Hard to Thrill
Conversation Tags: Facebook, Dave Winer, Robert Scoble, Stowe Boyd, A-List
2 Comments
It’s a shame that the discussion has kicked off like this, as the core point that Dave is making is a good one. This isn’t that Facebook doesn’t work (it does) but that all your data is locked up inside it and can’t be got out.
As a social network, the value of Facebook is created by its users, and yet they can’t even get their data out of it. That doesn’t sound good to me. I only wish that Dave could say that without making it some kind of personal issue.
Yeah it’s all just a bunch of nonsense to me. I use Facebook to keep in touch w/ real-life friends. Most of my friends do the same thing. I don’t use it as a rolodex (uh isn’t that what address books and/or rolodex’s are for?). Just because I use FB differently than Scoble, does that mean I’m using it ‘wrong’?
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A-List Bloggers Gone Wild…
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