[PCWorld]

Post your comments for The Top 10 Social Networking Annoyances here

[GeekNews]

Add to the list all those stupid add-on apps they are now creating and you've hit the majority of my personal annoyances. How many times a day do I need a comment from someone telling me they "bought me" or "you are worth".

[mathion]

As with all human behaviors, fads come and, thankfully, go. Like a rite of passage (akin to acne, voice changing and other awkwardness of the early teen years), the technology now exists for a lot of adolescents (chronological age not a factor) to get together and share themselves. I classify it in the same category as bell bottoms, disco, polyester leisure suits, the Charleston, goldfish swallowing and other fads and trends of the past. People still dance, wear clothes and eat fish (sushi anyone?), but the WAY they do it is different. And social networking will eventually evolve into something universally useful. Right now, it's contemplating how to walk and what life will be like out of diapers. All possibilities exist. And it exemplifies the adage, just because I can, doesn't mean I should. I'll leave it to the kids who play on it. When something more mature, better able to guarantee privacy and takes less maintenance shows up, I may give it a go. But not until then.

[biancazen01]

I disagree with point 7 where Mobile Social Networking (is) Still Kinda Weak. Check out myGamma.com. You can surf myGamma via web and mobile phone with no fuss and hassle. myGamma is really ahead of its time. It has been around since 2003, and engineeredly designed for mobiles. Because myGamma is international existing in 72 countries worldwide, anyone can log. For free.
As a mobile community which is carrier-independent, alike many other mobile off-deck players in the market like mocospace, peperonity, itsmy (some age older than the famous myspace and facebook), myGamma do not require any location updates. With international friends all over the world, leavin a msg to yr friends beats making calls hands down. Ala email VS snail mail.

myGamma went off-deck without carrier help since 2003 and the service has reached 2.5 million users. I have mixed confidence when web social sites have a leg in mobile as well because I believe that niche mobile social sites are the ones that fully understood consumers who surfs via mobile phones - Different niches for different players. Check out mygamma.com. See what I mean.

[sebastianlewis]

You know what else is annoying? All these websites that ask me to sign up in order to post any comments and then spam my inbox with offers. It's come to the point where I just filter out all those little annoying emails I don't want out with a Delete rule on both Gmail (server side) and in Mail.app (client side) straight to my trash. I really don't like spam, and I have high hopes that the box I unchecked for "offers from 3rd parties" will actually work.

Anyway, Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter and I assume other websites have a lot of privacy controls built in, I only let a select few apps that I actually like send me any emails so that's less filtering I have to do in my inbox which is great because the list of filtered email addresses and subject lines is too long already. Also make it a point to tell people to not contact you via that website, but to contact you directly via Email or IM or something else if they have something to say, I hate personal messages because I have an email address for a reason, it's not so I can sign up for websites (although I use it for that too), but for personal communication, via direct messages or mailing lists.

Sebastian

[Kilme]

Reminds me why I don't use MySpace anymore. Facebook is much better, but it still isn't that great. I just use it to keep in touch with friends that don't live near me. I find Facebook to be less spammy and has less random invites from people I've never heard of. The applications in Facebook are annoying indeed, but no one is forcing you to install them. No vampire-ninja parties for me I suppose.

[KellieCM]

You probably opted out when you registered on our site, but just in case, we made sure to opt you out of all PC World mailings. Thanks for posting!

[BillRoss]

Go, Scott! Couldn't have said it better myself... so I mostly just quoted you in my blog on one of my favorite subjects, trying to separate out the real value from the hype in Web 2.0/social networking, etc. Took the opportunity to get in a shot at Rupert Murdoch -- why would I want to belong to his community?



Thanks,
Bill Ross

[yyusoff]

There are other mobile social networks that have been around far longer than Facebook or myspace mobile. Check out peperonity, itsmy, mocospace among others.

[pooch]

Wow, you'd think if someone was smart enough to write a script to block Facebook applications then they'd be smart enough to know that it's a waste of time... you can remove yourself from the developer API and those Facebook apps will never spam you again. Of course, if you're dumb enough to be using Firefox in the first place, then you can probably guarantee that you don't have much end-user experience anyway.

Anyway, ten isn't enough. I can think of ten for Facebook alone, first with seemingly allowing developers to create apps but not monitoring them. Therefore they get away with forcing people to spam their friends after they've taken 10 minutes to do a quiz that one of your other friends has spammed you with - you don't get the answer until you've harassed twenty of your mates. Application developers willingly encourage spam - for example, Dope Wars and Gang Wars offer you money in their games if you spam everyone's wall with their crap. Facebook claim to take the subject of developer spam seriously, yet they do nothing about it if you do point these things out.

And let's move onto the fact that Facebook also allow groups to be set up with any agenda - racism is the top one - and then completely fail to respond to complaints about them. The classic one is the Facebook group bringing to our attention Jewish (Zionist) leaders of the New World Order, which I'm sure Zuckerberg would be interested in if he wasn't conforming to the atrocious stereotypes that some of these groups put across - like, more interested in counting his money.

I dropped Facebook because of its spam, its contenders for the most friends (someone I know has over 800 people on his list), its dumb applications, its bad-by-default privacy policy and most of all, its movement outside of academia and company networks which allowed it to become just as bad as MySpace only in different ways. I prefer to rely on, oh, emails, phone calls and meeting people in the pub now.

[sjeldich]

myspace.com is the WORST. At minimal privacy, once you upload your picture, any of your friends friends can see you... Now, how accurate can I justify this? I'm not entirely sure, but I do have myspace and haven't added a photo because once I make a comment on a friends wall, anybody who comments too can see my picture.

Facebook seems to be less instrusive or the better term "not as social" as myspace. There's just too many "what if's" involved with myspace.

[vMATTLEEv]

to the guy who says dumb enough to use firefox. if its dumb to use firefox wouldnt it mean ur a vegetable to use ie seeing as its technology is that of what firefox was 2 years ago or is past technology and ancient security better then newer technology and newer security?

the only ignorance are ie users who dis firefox users yet get more spyware through their browser by active x and other materials.

stupid ppl use old technology and only the dumbest of people use old technology from another company. ie8 is firefox 2.0. ie7 is firefox 1 just look at the engines they run on. firefox gets the new geko engines while ie gets the old. also for another test try ie8 on acid3 then try firefox 2 on it. even tho firefox 2 is a lot older it does better on it then beta ie8. firefox 3 scores a 71 which only opera and safari beats. now go to any secure site and see what they recommend most recommend firefox and opera not ie or safari. now add to the fact opera is only slightly more secure and the fact firefox can be tweaked to be even more secure and u have a guy blasting firefox for being too secure and too customizable.



so what this guy is saying is only the dumbest person wants the most secure browser that is also the most customizable. i couldve sworn it best to be most secure not least. am i missing something? =P

[pooch]

YOU badger on about an overrated browser, where a good few myths surrounding its security and stability are perpetuated by... well, people like YOU.

Mate, YOUR favourite browser turned into an IE clone in order to gain market share years ago. Only provenly slower and using way more memory. And frankly, whining that this is because of IE's OS integration is pointless - it's still faster and less of a resource hog.

I'm no fanboy, but I'm well aware of a huge series of myths surrounding IE, Firefox and Opera. The point was that someone went to the trouble of coding a Greasemonkey script without even bothering to check the Facebook security settings - REAL smart for a coder and a Firefox user, eh?

If Firefox is so much better, so much faster and so much more secure, why isn't it a corporate and educational standard instead of IE? I mean, if everything YOU'RE saying is true, then the IT experts at the top of these corporate chains would have rolled out Firefox across the board years ago.

But no, they haven't. Curious for companies whose main interest is streamlining and profitability, isn't it? Oh, don't tell me. They're just part of the massive capitalist agenda; they're probably getting kickbacks from Microsoft, right? Whereas the Mozilla foundation is all about being free... despite the proprietary code in there. Oh, and raking in the profit while they get everyone else to fix the bugs - which don't actually get fixed any quicker than the MS ones - in the name of open standards. Firefox remains a browser for fanboys and geeks, not real end users, which is frankly where my concern lies.

And FYI, I capitalised where YOU should be using words instead of letters.

[vMATTLEEv]

here's the truth

geeks/nerds = caring how others type outside of work/school, care about rules, dont like change


end users= dont like to be bothered by trivial things, love to be dif, love change , hate rules










now u gonna tell me im a geek when its u who cares about typing? because u would be in total denial if u believe that



youre gonne tell me ppl who like change and love to be dif would prefer a browser thats less customizable?










nerds/geeks use ie and the only end users who use ie are those who just use whats on the pc.










no person who hates rules would purposely choose ie, thats common sense










ie is only more popular because its orginally installed on the pc and MOST use what browser is installed on their pc and just update it. the others who actually speak highly of ie are nerds and geeks who love bill gates. most ppl who actually choose, choose firefox and its proven in countries where ie isnt install on their pc. firefox is more popular on pcs that ppl get to initially choose between. thats why in other countries firefox has more than 50% of the market share and if ie were so great and ppl didnt just use whats on their pc, firefox would be losing ground because it would be a "fad". but its not. once opera wins against microsoft, ull get to cry when firefox is most popular browser, because it already is for those who "CHOOSE" their browser rather then use what comes on their pc. (removed)

[pooch]

Ah now, you turn to unfounded 'facts' and direct abuse. :)

[mphenterprises]

Okay, before this gets way out of hand, please keep all responses in line with the article and the Discussion title. Personal attacks will not be tolerated and any personal attack posts will be edited or removed. If you have any questions, please feel free to review the {document:id=1000}.

[vMATTLEEv]

oh well if u care so much about what i say that it becomes direct abuse i pity u for caring so much. truth is u couldve called me a nerd, geek, loser, idiot, fag or whatever you thought could hurt me and id just laugh it off. you proved my pt tho. remember know thy enemy, i knew how u were the moment u dissed firefox. u however thought i was some easy prey when in the end ur the one who took what i said to heart. im glad if u took what i said as direct abuse because it proves my pt even more. im not gonna apologize and instead excuse me for laughing at u for calling anything someone says online as abuse HAHAHAHAHA

[houzanme1]

I enjoyed the article which is well written. particularly, the end opened up a good perspective that should be the evolution of Social networking.
This is just a painting of the problems social networks are facing and will overcome, so every individual becomes World Citizen able to interact with any other whether on earth, moon or Jupiter. We've just now seen the beginning of the global civilization.
Ulrich Tibaut Houzanme