Saturday, December 31, 2011

What is all the hoopla about Facebook?

The Facebook interface is really poorly done.  And for that reason, I cannot fathom why there is all the hoopla about it.

For example, if I try to find a person, say "John J. Jacobheimerschmidt" - it might actually find that person, as it is an unusual name.  But "John Smith"?  No way.  It will find hundreds of "John Smiths" or go to the "top result" but not find the one I am looking for.

OK, you say, no big deal, there are a lot of John Smiths out there.  But suppose it was a John Smith who was a friend of a friend of mine?  Or suppose it was a John Smith whose page I looked at 10 days ago?

Doncha think that, you know, with computers and all, the search engine would figure this out and direct me to that John Smith as the most likely hit?  Naw, that would be too, well, Google-like.

No, all Facebook does is a moderate "scrape" of your e-mail address book, and that's about it.  Not really very high-tech here, just a pretty simple interface.

And this is worth billions of dollars?  I just don't see it.