Why people 'dislike' Facebook: Gordon Young's draft leader
Facebook may be the darling of Wall Street, but is regarded with suspicion bordering on contempt in places like Main Road, East Ayrshire. Gordon Young argues this hostility points to flaws in its core proposition.
It was a rancorous, rough and tumble affair. The anger in the village hall was palpable over plans for a new housing scheme. But how should opposition be coordinated?
Posters in the newsagent? Door drops? Email lists? Somebody, it might have been me, suggested a Facebook page.
From the response you'd have thought I had just admitted that I had put my name down for one of the new homes. Moans, groans and anguished 'nos' rippled around the circa 150 strong gathering.
Earlier this week, more commentators, including the founder of failed site boo.com (who knows a thing or two about internet bubbles) said at $50billion Facebook is overvalued. Well if this grassroots feedback is anything to go by he is right.
Facebook may the the darling of social media types, the toast of Wall Street, but in Main Road, East Ayrshire it is regarded with suspicion bordering on contempt.
And I suspect this broad-based sample is not atypical. In short Facebook has a problem. It clearly is not a trusted brand. It frequently boasts of having 500m users. But to me the real test of its value is how many of these are actually active.
Facebook challenges are well documented. Many regard privacy as been at the root of many of its problems. But I suspect there are more subtle flaws as well. In trying to be all things to all men, Facebook cuts through anthropological conventions.
Grouping business contacts together with your granny for example, just doesn't work. Communication between colleagues and friends are governed by different social conventions. That is why many people are uncomfortable befriending their boss on the site. Mind you, unfriending your boss might also be a bit of a high risk strategy too.
Now the idea that segmenting audiences might be a sensible strategy is hardly new. But the problem is that Facebook, as part of its ambition to become an alternative internet, has chosen to ignore this.
And that explains why people are instinctively uneasy with this proposition – and perhaps one reason it might ultimately recede into the background as other social media alternatives emerge.
People will always want different tools for doing different jobs; such as managing friends and managing business contacts in a way that does not link the two.
That is why our village campaign is still using posters, email list, newsagent postcards, door drops together with a WordPress blog. And yes a Facebook page is one part of the mix too. And it even has about 15 Likes.
Find out more about what else is excercising the people of Fenwick, East Ayrshire.