Ever since Facebook bought FriendFeed, I’ve been getting daily notices from FriendFeed that complete strangers are following me, with dubious names like Casual Encounters and Scanna69. If I’ve never met you (and you’re a robot), how can we be friends? And doesn’t being stalked by strangers and spammers implicitly undermine the concept of a “Friend”Feed in the first place?
We can blame MySpace for the Orwellian devolution by which the term “friend” ceased to have any true meaning (at least online). Twitter was savvy enough to rename its users’ contacts “followers,” which connotes a far less intimate (and often unreciprocated) relationship. And Facebook’s use of “friend” is at least halfway defensible, since its original intent was to link people who actually did know each other in college.
But when a service includes the term “friend” in its name, shouldn’t it mean something more? Shouldn’t the interactions that take place among alleged friends be more valuable and run deeper than passing exchanges with followers or fans? Or have we finally reached the stage where we need to coin a new term for the people we actually know?
Tags: audience, common sense, facebook, MySpace, networking, Social Media, Sociology, Twitter
Yeah, man. I’ve posted about this a bunch of times. The term “friend” means nothing at all, when it comes to Social Media.
That’s why I’m waiting for that rumored addition of “Fan” status to regular FB accounts. I already have my list set up of people that I actually interact with vs. people that added me in a Fan-like way. If they actually create that distinction, FB will be a lot better, because we’ll be able to communicate to our inner circles one way and to the masses another way… even if our inner circle happens to be 691 people! :O hahaha
This is something that crosses my mind quite often. The devaluation of certain words online.
Friend has definitely lost meaning. Worse yet, are the folks that don’t realize that. There is something creepy when someone calls you a valued friend, when you don’t even know their real name. That has happened to me a couple of times.
There are several words that have also suffered, too many in fact to list. But another standout to me is like. That is not a great term to use for highlighting content that a person finds interesting online. I for one highlight things I find interesting, disturbing, and that I like. One button named “like” doesn’t really cut it in that setting.
I would rather not share than have someone think I like something that is disturbing, but may be of interest to others, especially if that other is one of my valued, yet unknown and anonymous, online friends.