The Social Network Hype

Is it just me or does Facebook really feels like giving license to stalk one another?

Think about it. The site just goes on and publish every single action everyone within your network has ever done even prior to your being a member. You get to see who's friends with who and when; you'll see someone's in a relationship with someone; you see who wrote on who's wall and who commented on who's comments, etc. etc. etc... And when you log in, the first thing it asks is: "What are you Doing right now?" Now, what's that all about?

Just last night me and two office mates were discussing this hype about social networking and I totally agree with one of them who said that these sites are being used as data miners.

Sign up and the sites ask you tons of personal questions; it wants to know your preferences, hobbies, interests and whatchamacallits. These information are powerful and indispensable tools for marketing.

Not that there's anything illegal about that; none that I know of, at least. In fact it's an ingenious way of doing things. Instead of them paying big bucks for services that do real data mining and research on market preferences, they do it themselves and get possibly more accurate data from willing participants. Instead of paying people to fill out surveys (and these people are really just doing it for the money which gives a high probability that the data that provide are inaccurate), they get people to willingly give out information they need and instead of them trying hard to find people who would give them the data, they let the members do that for them. It's a win-win situation. Simply genius, no?

I might be wrong and I may have just given them an idea on how to better use their sites, but it just isnt such a far-off idea. But, hey! Who am I to complain? I signed myself up for the service, didn't I?