Journal #7

“In Your Face: How Facebook Could Crush Myspace, Yahoo! and Google.” by Christopher Beam

This article was both highly amusing and very informative. It addresses the short comings of the social network called Facebook and contemplates how the site could improve to the level that it kicks other websites out of the running for most popular social network. Facebook, the article explains is similar to the kind of website that Myspace is. That is, Facebook is a website for people to get together, blog, comment on each other’s pages, and spend hours messing around. However, Facebook is far behind when it comes to user friendly options and features that enhance the pages functionality.

Facebook has neither of the two important functions that make Myspace so user friendly, that is e-mail and instant messaging. The author of this article, Christopher Beam, explains that these two functions are crucial to the survival of Facebook in a internet culture that looks for both ease and multi-tasking ability in a website. Facebook, Beam argues, also must improve the visual appearance and the level of customization of its page in order to attract a crowd that basis their use of social networking pages solely on these two concepts.

The author points out that the best feature about Facebook is that it is not spam infested like Yahoo! or Myspace. It also does have many amusing tools such as a grafitti writer to mark up a friend’s page or a wallet to manage online bill payments. This unfortunately, is not enough incentive for internet users to switch over. Therefore, Facebook will have to change its site and improve its marketability in order to kick Myspace and Yahoo! out of the picture completely before they merge and kick Facebook out.

I have never used Facebook myself, but currently use Myspace. The author is right about the fact that Myspace, as well as Yahoo! are completely spam infested. I also use Yahoo! as my primary email account, and am constantly getting spam emails. This is the worst part of both of these sites, is the spam. I would definetly use a social network like Facebook if it had more features, was more user friendly, and was more visually pleasing. I have received Trojan horses from Myspace before that have almost taken out my computer. So at this point, I would be open to any new, virus free social network with e-mail capability.`

1. How is this relevant to education?
This is important topic because it is important to know how technology is being used by students in today’s world. When an educator understands how students use technology and the internet, it is possible for them to utilize that source, such as Myspace or Facebook to communicate with their students and/or parents.
2. How could I use a tool like this in my classroom?
I could use Facebook much like a class blog. I could create a virtual classroom for my students in which they can see their classmate’s pages, check up on extra credit assignments, or communicate issues they are interested in with the class and the teacher by creating blogs.