Facebook Friends - no Substitute For The Real Thing

An article in SvD regarding Facebook put forward the idea that the reason Facebook has become so popular in Sweden is that Swedes are so socially awkward that they need the anonymity of the computer screen to feel relaxed enough to make friends.

The thing is though, it is all just a fantasy and not like having real friends at all, especially if your aim is to have as many people as possible on your friends list. I use Facebook mostly to keep an eye on what my friends back in the UK are doing. The best bit is seeing pictures they have posted of what they are up to in their lives.

But its not like actually seeing them and being there. It's not like I can go to the pub with them or the cinema, it's not like having a real friend. I think Facebook is great for keeping in touch with friends, but is not the best way to meet new friends. Being a friend is much more than just chatting about any old bollocks with somebody when your’re supposed to be at work. No its about sitting face to face with somebody in a bar of coffee shop (and then talking bollocks - if your a man anyway)

Anyone who uses Facebook should try to borrow 100Kr form each of their friends. The ones that come up with the money, those are the true friends (so don't forget to pay them back)...

Time for media companies to learn to live with file sharing

In the great debate over internet file sharing this is one of the dumber suggestions. Broadband suppliers supply the infrastucture by which we as consumers can access the internet. They should be free from prosecution over what is being transferred so that they can get on with the job of providing better services, rather than trying to police their own services, which we as consumers will ultimately pay for in higher costs. It also means more personal data will need to be saved and made available regarding our broadband habits, which has privacy concerns.

The truth is that now the cat is out of the bag, there is no way to un-invent the technology behind file sharing, nor stop people from using it. Media companies should instead learn how to use this new technology to their advantage and make money from it in some other way. Having failed to convince the courts that sites like Pirate Bay are responsible for the information they host, they are now going after the braodband suppliers.

Darth Vader Being an Asshole

A friend of mine showed me this and I nearly cried laughing. This is what YouTube is really about, not kids videoing each other burning their hair and hanging onto electric fences.

Gonna Get Myself Connected

VLT ran an article today discussing how more and more people are living out their social lives on the Internet. Some 100 000 Swedes are now members of some sort of social internet site and these sites are becoming a more integrated part of our social lives so that there is less of a distinction between the friends you meet in the flesh and the friend you meet online.

Ten years ago this phenomena was purely for the geeks, but now anybody and create a life for themselves on the net. Both my wife and I write bloggs, I have accounts on social networking sites Friends Reunited and Facebook and my wife also publishes pictures on Flickr.

I use this blogg to just sound off about stuff I see around me and most of the time it feels like I’m having a conversation with somebody over coffee, even though I have no idea who you are reading this right now…(also, you don’t get to interrupt me, which is nice :o).

Facebook is different though, as I use it to keep in touch with friends back in the UK who I have not seen for years. You can use it to chat to people and upload pictures of what you are doing or where you have been and see what your friends have been up to, you can also send people virtual fish if they have a virtual aquarium and even start a virtual food fight! I rarely ever ring me friends back in the UK now, as all our conversations are done over the internet.

I wonder though what it will be like in 15 years time, when my kids are teenagers and bulky computers and keyboards will be old technology…

‘Look, son, you are not getting a Web4.0 Brain Implant and that’s final!’

Webstats Ruined My Life

My name is Swenglishman and I am an addict…this is my story…

When I started blogging I set up stat tracking accounts with statcounter.com and then later with Google Analytics. It seamed like a bit of fun at the time, to see how many people were looking at my blog and where in the world they came from. I thought I could handle it… You know how it is, other people get hooked, but not me, I’m stronger than that…

But then I found myself checking the stats more and more. I would find myself coming home from work and immediately checking how many hits I’d got that day, it was the first thing I did in the morning and the last thing I did at night. Everything else took second place, my job, my kids, my marriage, now I am left with nothing, living out of a cardboard box with just this laptop and a WiFi connection.

Oh all right, maybe not, but it is still really fun and to see the webstats and its interesting what they tell us about the habits of Blogg readers. For example I get most hits at 13.00pm on weekdays, when office workers get back from lunch and need some chill out time before the afternoon session. Another big peak is at 8.00am, when the workers first log on and read the latest blogs while they wait for that first coffee of the day to kick in. After lunch there is a peak at the 18.00pm and another at 20.00pm (which I guess are readers with small kids who have just got the little devils off to bed).

Hmmm….I wonder how many new hits I’ll get form this post…I better just go and take a look…