Joined the all so popular Facebook today. Apparently it is very well known here in Australia. From fellow Uni course mates to lecturers, everyone has a Facebook account. Out of curiosity, (and of course succumbing to the force of advertising through the never ending emails of your so and so friend has joined Facebook - Join it too!), I decided to create an account to have a look.
Being a member of Friendster for a couple of years, I was pretty upset by the somewhat cluttered homepage greeting me after logging into my Facebook account. Clicking onto a friend to view his profile, I was bombarded by thousands of weird looking widgets in his profile. It took me some seconds to realize what they are and their uses.
After a few minutes mucking around, I was not impressed. Granted, the ability to add applications into your profile is a bonus. But I would say most of them are not really that useful. I installed the Youtube box, Imeem box and a Blog RSS feeder. The rest of those application, I dun see much a point installing them except in trying to make my profile 'look cool' by making it super cluttered and messy...
One major drawback for Facebook is its lack of CSS support. Unlike Friendster, you do not have full control in customizing how you want your profile to look like. Embedding media has to be done through applications which by themselves have their limitations. I wouldn't want to go into details of what a person cannot do without CSS support.
In addition, there seems to be quite a few restrictions in viewing other people's profile as well as making friends compared to Friendster. But maybe thats just me. I tried to change my Network from Singapore to Japan and they say I can't change back within the next 2 months! No idea whats the big issue here...
All in all, Facebook in itself has its good points, perhaps I shouldn't really compare the two as it would appear that Facebook isn't trying to be like a second Friendster. Its in its own league. An apple and an orange. However, if I am just looking for a site to stay in contact with friends, my choice would be Friendster; where I can fully customize my profile as I see fit. But without doubt, Facebook would be nice to have some mindless fun with friends using all those applications. Sadly, I am not someone who seeks this type of fun.
Being a member of Friendster for a couple of years, I was pretty upset by the somewhat cluttered homepage greeting me after logging into my Facebook account. Clicking onto a friend to view his profile, I was bombarded by thousands of weird looking widgets in his profile. It took me some seconds to realize what they are and their uses.
After a few minutes mucking around, I was not impressed. Granted, the ability to add applications into your profile is a bonus. But I would say most of them are not really that useful. I installed the Youtube box, Imeem box and a Blog RSS feeder. The rest of those application, I dun see much a point installing them except in trying to make my profile 'look cool' by making it super cluttered and messy...
One major drawback for Facebook is its lack of CSS support. Unlike Friendster, you do not have full control in customizing how you want your profile to look like. Embedding media has to be done through applications which by themselves have their limitations. I wouldn't want to go into details of what a person cannot do without CSS support.
In addition, there seems to be quite a few restrictions in viewing other people's profile as well as making friends compared to Friendster. But maybe thats just me. I tried to change my Network from Singapore to Japan and they say I can't change back within the next 2 months! No idea whats the big issue here...
All in all, Facebook in itself has its good points, perhaps I shouldn't really compare the two as it would appear that Facebook isn't trying to be like a second Friendster. Its in its own league. An apple and an orange. However, if I am just looking for a site to stay in contact with friends, my choice would be Friendster; where I can fully customize my profile as I see fit. But without doubt, Facebook would be nice to have some mindless fun with friends using all those applications. Sadly, I am not someone who seeks this type of fun.
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