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New Apps Enable Social Network Snubbing

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on Sat Oct 13, 2007 05:31 AM
from the true-spirit-of-the-internet dept.
beafpeat writes "Both The Boston Globe and NPR are reporting on new apps such as Enemybook and Snubster that parody the social networking phenomenon. 'Tired of bogus online friendships... [the creators] hope to encourage people to undermine, or at least mock, the online social communities sites such as Facebook were designed to create.'" Relatedly News.com wonders, with the opening of the Facebook API and the ensuing app frenzy, how much is too much of a good thing?

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[+] Developers: Social Networking Sites Opening Their APIs 56 comments
prostoalex writes "Business Week magazine is looking at social networking sites opening their APIs to third-party developers to enable social applications not supported by the network itself. Facebook is setting an example by releasing their API from beta into 1.0, and many others are expected to follow the suit. Quoting from the article: 'Since Facebook, a network of 17 million college students, started a pilot program last summer, third-party developers have created some 100 new applications. Now a Facebook user name and password can be used to log in to content-sharing and chat site Mosoto, and to automatically import Facebook friends into Mosoto's buddy list for chat. Facebook itself does not offer a chat function.'"
[+] Politics: Illinois Bill Would Ban Social Networking Sites 293 comments
AlexDV writes "Library blogger Michael Stephens is reporting that an Illinois state senator, Matt Murphy (R-27, Palatine), has filed a bill that 'Creates the Social Networking Web site Prohibition Act. Provides that each public library must prohibit access to social networking Web sites on all computers made available to the public in the library. Provides that each public school must prohibit access to social networking Web sites on all computers made available to students in the school.' Here is the bill's full text." This local effort harks back to an attempt last May to get federal legislation banning school and library use of social networking sites (Wikipedia summary here). The DOPA bill passed the House but died in the Senate.
[+] Your Rights Online: Connecticut Wants to Restrict Social Networking 242 comments
csefft writes "According to the Hartford Courant, Connecticut became the latest state to want to restrict the use of MySpace and other social networking sites. The proposed bill would require that all such sites verify the identity and age of users, as well as get parent's permission for those under 18. Sites that failed to comply would be subject to a $5,000 per day fine. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said of the proposition, 'If we can put a man on the moon, we can verify age on the Internet,' but quickly followed with the acknowledgment that there is no foolproof method."
[+] IT: Social Networking Sites Full of Security Holes 76 comments
athloi writes "Social networking Web sites such as MySpace.com are increasingly juicy targets for computer hackers, who are demonstrating a pair of vulnerabilities they claim expose sensitive personal information and could be exploited by online criminals."
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  • Bad Idea (Score:4, Insightful)

    I have never seen what could turn out to be a better lawsuit incubator.
    • Re:Bad Idea by therufus (Score:2) Saturday October 13, @05:38AM
      • Re:Bad Idea by Anonymous Coward (Score:2) Saturday October 13, @05:43AM
        • Re:Bad Idea by Anonymous Coward (Score:1) Saturday October 13, @05:58AM
        • Re:Bad Idea (Score:4, Informative)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 13, @07:27AM (#20965053)
          The -or ending was the original form from Latin, and quite popular with our ancestral brethren, too. Much like the change of hw- to wh-, you can thank the French for numerous boggling aspects to the English language.
          [ Parent ]
          • Re:Bad Idea by Scrameustache (Score:2) Saturday October 13, @03:40PM
          • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
      • Re:Bad Idea (Score:5, Insightful)

        by 15Bit (940730) on Saturday October 13, @05:54AM (#20964699)
        I think its less a sense of humour loss and more an overdeveloped sense of political correctness. It just seems that half the western world wakes up in a morning looking for ways to be offended. And if they can't take offence directly they do it by proxy, taking offence for some random social demographic who they feel *would* be offended if they knew about it.
        [ Parent ]
        • Re:Bad Idea by jamesh (Score:2) Saturday October 13, @08:09AM
        • Re:Bad Idea by Jarik_Tentsu (Score:1) Saturday October 13, @08:13AM
        • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
    • Re:Bad Idea (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Aladrin (926209) on Saturday October 13, @06:19AM (#20964775)
      Indeed it is. I work with a guy who made something like this in another city. It was basically a site where you talk bad about other people you know 'anonymously'. Everyone was from the same little area that knew about the site, so it quickly grew out of hand and I believe he said he had to take it down 2 days later because of all the threats.
      [ Parent ]
    • Re:Bad Idea by Zero__Kelvin (Score:2) Saturday October 13, @07:29AM
      • Re:Bad Idea by SigmundFloyd (Score:2) Saturday October 13, @09:13AM
        • Re:Bad Idea by Zero__Kelvin (Score:2) Saturday October 13, @03:02PM
          • Re:Bad Idea by SigmundFloyd (Score:1) Sunday October 14, @03:59AM
            • Re:Bad Idea by Zero__Kelvin (Score:2) Tuesday October 16, @09:03AM
              • Re:Bad Idea by SigmundFloyd (Score:1) Tuesday October 16, @03:08PM
              • Re:Bad Idea by Zero__Kelvin (Score:2) Tuesday October 16, @04:14PM
    • Re:Bad Idea by radiotyler (Score:2) Saturday October 13, @10:48AM
    • 2 replies beneath your current threshold.
  • Problem is the way it's used (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sqrt(2) (786011) on Saturday October 13, @05:46AM (#20964679)
    There really is no problem with the way Facebook is setup (apps are, overwhelmingly, useless and stupid but maybe there are some useful ones, I don't know). The problem is how people use the system. But you don't have to use it like that. Just a few days ago someone from my high school tried to add my as a friend on Facebook. I had never heard of this person before, couldn't remember speaking to or seeing them even once. She did go to the same high school as me, but we weren't friends. Ignore request.

    Don't add people that you aren't/weren't actually friends with, and ignore requests from people who are just trying to increase their friends count and e-penis size. These websites are as useful as you make them.
    • by rtyhurst (460717) on Saturday October 13, @06:14AM (#20964751)
      I was a pathetic loser of 42, still living in my Mom's basement and writing software for DOS before Facebook.

      I had like zero friends.

      Now with Facebook, I have 1723 "friends"!

      Of course I'm still a pathetic loser living in my Mom's basement, but I bet have more "friends" than you!

      So, it's all good, eh?
      [ Parent ]
      • by therufus (677843) on Saturday October 13, @07:45AM (#20965141)
        I have 27 friends on my Facebook and 46 friends on my Myspace (many of whom are on Facebook too).

        Considering I have 0 friends in real life and I live with my parents (all because of a bitter divorce - yes, friends and living with parents), FB and MS give me false hope that there are people who may actually wish to communicate with me. Yes that is sad, but it's the truth. I believe to some extent, this is the reason why these sites are so popular. It's got nothing to do with the fancy applets, not even the interface. It's the sheer fact that people can communicate with others they wouldn't usually.

        I'm off to bed to sleep... alone.

        Wait, gotta check my FB first... (for the non-existent glimmer of hope that someone of the opposite sex may talk to me).
        [ Parent ]
      • Re:Problem is the way it's used by Rolgar (Score:2) Saturday October 13, @01:32PM
      • The meaning of life/universe/everything by Scrameustache (Score:2) Saturday October 13, @03:51PM
    • Re:Problem is the way it's used by Glowing Fish (Score:2) Saturday October 13, @06:49AM
    • Re:Problem is the way it's used by Scrameustache (Score:2) Saturday October 13, @03:47PM
  • How Pathetic (Score:2)

    by RAMMS+EIN (578166) on Saturday October 13, @05:57AM (#20964705)
    (http://inglorion.net/ | Last Journal: Thursday October 06 2005, @07:17AM)
    How pathetic. "Hey, these guys are succesful and these people are having fun! Let's spoil it!"

    I don't have a high opinion of the facebooks and myspaces of the world, and i'll admit to occasional episodes of resentment (usually when there is superior technology or skills, but the guy who shouts loudest gets the cake), but I would stop short of actually undermining, disrupting, and destroying their products.
  • by Opportunist (166417) on Saturday October 13, @05:59AM (#20964711)
    One that lets you "friend" random other people, create fake facebook pages for you (complete with history and the odd entry) and so on. Just to spit in the soup of various data miners.

    The only thing that's worse to a data miner than giving him no data is to poison the data he has.
  • Facebook (Score:4, Interesting)

    by deniable (76198) on Saturday October 13, @06:06AM (#20964729)
    All I've had so far is people throwing stuff at me. I might as well be back in high school. And the apps are over the top. Install one and the first thing it does is get in your face to spam it to all of your friends. The main problem is having the sort of friends who also forward chain letters. It sure feels the same.
  • Another feature stolen from Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)

    by TheRaven64 (641858) on Saturday October 13, @06:18AM (#20964769)
    (http://theravensnest.org/ | Last Journal: Sunday October 07, @07:05AM)
    How long have we had foes/freaks here? Since before I signed up, which was before any social networking sites even existed.
  • The title is wrong (Score:3, Funny)

    by davmoo (63521) on Saturday October 13, @06:59AM (#20964927)
    The title for the lead-in on this story shouldn't have been "New Apps Enable Social Network Snubbing". It should have been "Here's Some Idiots Who Need To Get A Life".

    If you don't like Facebook or Myspace, etc, don't use them. Its that simple.
  • Prior art (Score:3, Insightful)

    by HangingChad (677530) on Saturday October 13, @07:53AM (#20965171)
    (http://www.dangercollie.com/music/)

    [the creators] hope to encourage people to undermine, or at least mock, the online social communities...

    Before Snubster there was /.

  • by Fnkmaster (89084) on Saturday October 13, @08:04AM (#20965213)
    Facebookake [facebookake.com].
  • A crude virtual Death Note [deathnoteonline.com] exists, but it would be cooler to have a Facebook application for it.
    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • by popo (107611) on Saturday October 13, @09:04AM (#20965513)
    Look at the inane formulas on the whiteboard behind him. So hilariously "made for press".

  • Apps suck (Score:2)

    by crossmr (957846) on Saturday October 13, @10:05AM (#20965945)
    (Last Journal: Thursday February 15 2007, @08:40PM)
    I don't think I've seen a good app, and really I'm sick of not logging in for a couple days and seeing like 40 requests for various apps. They also make people's profiles look like crap once you get more than one or two. They really need to include a feature "ignore all app requests".
  • From TFA: "Over the summer, Kevin Matulef, who is doing a doctoral thesis on algorithms at MIT, designed Enemybook, a software application that lets people list enemies below friends on their personal Facebook page. He describes the program as "an antisocial utility that disconnects you to the so-called friends around you."

    How creative. At least, one can infer that he is able to relate 'freak' (or 'foe') to 'enemy'. A true candidate to successfully 'do a hardware application' by 2050 [slashdot.org].

    CC.
  • LinkedIn needs something like this (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Animats (122034) on Saturday October 13, @11:35AM (#20966733)
    (http://www.animats.com)

    LinkedIn is supposed to be about linking up people you already know. But it has spammers, called "open networkers", who will link to anybody. They're just trolling for big link counts. Some way to give those guys negative points when they spam would be useful. Right now, there's no penalty for asking.

    • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.
  • 1 reply beneath your current threshold.