Last summer in London was the Summer of Crappy Weather, and also the Summer of Facebook. So inevitably this year the pub/bar/park conversations regularly dip into who’s still using Facebook and who’s not, and the usual argument about its merits ensues.
“It’s a place to put your photos” one friend said recently in Facebook’s defence. And I realised that for my demographic at least, that’s largely it. A reasonably large core of my friends still seem to be using it regularly – but a few still haven’t signed up. And the hardcore users are very much into posting photographs, probably more than anything else. Perhaps Flickr wasn’t quite social enough for most people – it appeals more to those who are *really* into photos, but less so to those who just want to publish some happy snaps as an easy way of keeping in touch.
I maintain Facebook would’ve been great if there were far less pointless widgets. Turning it into a platform was great in theory, but all the zombies and crap just drove away people like me – who liked it as a social tool rather than a time-waster – in the end.
