DISQUS

I agree with Matt. Further, that this same tutorial was posted twice, once without images and once with image URLs (note that neither was posted with actual images or even links to images) is quite amateurish and unprofessional. At the very least, you could categorize this post so we could attempt to filter it out somehow. But keeping these novice Facebook user tutorials off this blog entirely would be even better.

How about keeping the tutorials in a separate section of the website and only posting announcements about them in the blog as a compromise?

Nick, I don't think any SNS has a full and accurate representation of my social graph. But anecdotal information won't help us establish which SNS currently has the most accurate representation of more users' social graphs. In fact, I would think that actually measuring that might be quite difficult. *If* all of the data (XFN and FOAF) are out there then it seems that Google's approach might actually be a really good one. I guess we'll find out shortly...

Nick, I'm afraid that I don't see any evidence in your post supporting your assertion that "Facebook has the most accurate representation of the social graph." Did I miss it?

Can you please support your assertion that "posting a photo online, creating a Facebook page, or blogging makes you a public figure...according to the law?" I am particularly interested in the "posting a photo online" and "creating a Facebook page" portion of your assertion.

Nick,

Some of the research with which I am familiar is in my online bibliography at http://mistakengoal.com/wikindx3/index.php?acti.... I'm sure there are other articles and useful materials that I haven't yet added to my bibliography, discovered, or have forgotten to tag with "Facebook" but it's a good start.

Nick,

You state that "When college students are at home, Facebook is one of their main forms of communication." Can you please point me to some research that supports that assertion? All of the research of which I am aware related to this topic ("How often do you log in?") was either conducted during the academic year when many students, particularly younger students, are likely to live on-campus or is old enough that I don't quite trust the numbers to be accurate anymore.

But what about the dangers of using someone else's proprietary system to carry out our core mission, a "someone" with whom we have no agreement or formal relationship? I understand that Linden Lab has done pretty well and that Second Life currently has the lion's share of the market share in this (cyber)space but there are dangers in relying on them. I don't want to stifle innovation but let's just keep that in the back of our mind as we go forth and experiment. Let's not become too enamored of this one tree that we (a) gloss over its many defects and shortcomings and (b) lose sight of the forest growing up around us.