Since its beginning in 2004, ‘Facebook’ has made it as an giant success story, albeit not one without controversy. Plenty of controversy. But I am not here to discuss that. I am here to tell you a bit about social networking and why it’s a great addition to any Smart TV.
In some ways coming out through the now elapsed ‘Myspace’ and the excess of imitators it left in its wake, Facebook emerged as champion of the social networks, (until the next one comes along, that is). Facebook has occupied the Web using a clever exploitation of these 3 ever-reliable concepts:
1) People love gossiping about others, particularly secretly.
2) People are inordinately fond of and poking their noses into the lives of others.
3) People’s unquenchable self attention, which, when fuelled by Facebook, is egotism on steroids.
Facebook is a remarkable tool and one which has easily tailored itself to smart phones, portable devices and now, even Television. In the end, Myspace was the cumbersome Neanderthal, who, even though being better, smarter and more powerful than Homo Sapiens, succumbed to the retreating ice age somewhat swiftly, failing to adapt to the world he could no longer understand. Facebook, conversely, was the eventual Cro Magnon victor, shivering in the cave throughout Neanderthal’s time, he emerged on the warm plains of the modern-day and, either directly or indirectly, eradicated his rival before moving with the altering technology and times, to the point he could sit at his writing table and update his position numerous times a day.
‘Twitter’ is an extremely limited website that acts like a miniature Facebook. Users have a couple of words to publicize their actions, opinion and/or feelings to a world that mostly does not care unless its worried that it is being cheated on. Yet, while famous people on Facebook tend to not update their own web pages, on Twitter an individual can follow (and sometimes communicate with) the behavior of Hollywood luminaries, celebrities, sports stars and other notable people, who are often surprisingly honest about their daily lives.
Facebook and Twitter are both big ones, but there’s others, greater than I can count that follow the same simple model but specialise in a new area (LinkedIn, for instance, deals with business relationships a lot more than personal ones). Many sites co-exist with Facebook now, feeding off their scraps like remoras on the back of the Tiger Shark. With nearly all online content, there is even an option to ‘Like’ it, thus adding it to the Facebook page (when you look closely at this page, you will almost definitely find one, which serves to spotlight just how all-encompassing Facebook’s presence is.
Smart TV, recognising the ubiquity of such sites and the emphasis that modern online business places on this ubiquity, has Facebook, Twitter (and the other social network sites) available for download. This means that you can have full (or nearly full) access to your Facebook account and update it without even going to a computer. Last night, when I needed to update my very own Facebook to say that I was watching, for what must be the hundredth time, the movie ‘The 40 Year Old Virgin’ I might have easily done it throughout a tea break in the movie itself rather than aiming to do it and ultimately forgetting, as I essentially did.
When you’re wondering how people are doing and you need up-to-the-minute information, Facebook is frequently the place to go. Facebook the site is free to use, could be the Smart TV app at time of writing and is a wonderful comms tool, particularly for people you do not essentially know that well. These days, people change their phone numbers every 0.3 of a second, so Facebook remains one reliable way to ensure you can always keep in touch. I like to think of it as a really badly written newspaper, where the headlines are a little sunnier, a lot less biased and contain individuals I essentially give a damn about.
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