The Facebook Effect

Reducing "people" to "users" and "consumers" through profiles designed to define them as such. (Zuckerberg: "A lot of the information people produce is inherently commercial. And if you look at someone's profile, almost all the fields that define them are in some way commercial - music, movies, books, products, games. It's a part of our identity as people that we like something, but it also has commercial value.")...What made social networking such a big deal was the fact that people liked being used. Anything was better than the loneliness and boredom of the Internet and the derangements brought on by blogger psychosis. And so social networking became a drug. Early on, Facebook executives called the effect their product had "the trance," understanding that what they were doing was essentially pushing a narcotic (not coincidentally, their first big advertiser would be a gambling site).

Read the entire review here.

Found Poem

I'm so jazzed on reading David McGimpsey's latest book Sitcom (more on that later) that it's screwed with how and where I see poetry. Here's the result.

'YES'
a facebook friends feed

Ellen has received a ‘Yes’
Lev has removed The Doors from his favourite music
Romy is attending Jolly Nights 24.12.07
Penn joined the group Support the Monks’ Protest in Burma
Beth added the Birthday Calendar application
Simon and Rachel are now friends
Lev added the ATTACK! application
Ina is working and working and working
Cyndi challenged Trevor to Name that Cartoon Character
Joseph and Morningstar found each other
using the Friend Finder
Simon and Suki are now friends
Robin added the We’re Related application
Zach is exasperated by misguided literary nationalism
Divvy and Beth added the Jewish Gifts application
David joined the group Circus Afterhours
21 of your friends have received a new message
Charles was tagged in a group album
Ellen has received a ‘Yes’
See who has clicked ‘Yes’ on ‘YOU’.