No, Facebook, Your “Extraordinary Gift” Did Not Create The Personalized Web

I just watched the video of the interview on the bottom of the page and to be honest I really dislike his tone. The extraordinary gift part just topped it all of. How do you expect a user of your service to respond to that? Should I say thank you Facebook and overlook all your other shortcomings?

In fact the way he answered those legitimate questions about Facebook policy is similar to the way Facebook treats its users.

It would be laughable a few years ago that people would view the whole web through a php portal. Now it's just a little ridiculous, but not unimaginable. Can't the world do better than this buggy portal?

>It has always been the case since the dawning of the World Wide Web that we would all go to the same site and get the same information.

What, what, what? That's the exact opposite of what the web is supposed to be about. The web is supposed to be an escape from the scarcity of broadcast media that require us all to go to the same source for the same information. It's Facebook that wants to be the One True Portal, and superficial customization be damned.

What unbelievably vile sophistry!

> Jeff Bezos and his team were never fully honored for helping the public in this way

Seriously? Man of the year 1999 (the most awesome year ever) is not good enough? Should they give have given him a Nobel prize for economics?

Have to agree with the author, anyone that has used the web in the last decade will know that there is nothing innovative about the functionalities offered by facebook. The average Joe will surely think differently. He can now share his updates/groups/fanpages/photos with supposed-to-be friends and play useless games directly from one single familiar site. Will they remain loyal to fb or jump somewhere else when shinier things will be offered?

(Note: Deliberately i'm not talking about architectural/implementation choices, considering the scale, i'm sure that from this point of view the fb engineers have found at least some clever solutions to complex problems, so, ok, they use php somewhere, but a technical discussion should not be based solely on that, let alone an evaluation...)

Anyone else surprised that the "public policy director" for Facebook wears a suit and tie?

company does some pr. blogger fakes outrage to draw visitors. bored bitter nerds read it and do nothing.