Why So Little Tech News...

So postings have been sparse on my blog unfortunately. There are a number of reasons for this sparsity which includes just a complete lack of time. I have had too many things to do and issues to resolve both at home and work. Plus my son has been racking up the hours on World of Warcraft barring my access to the computer.

To be fair though, I am not convinced that me rewrite technology articles is really useful or relevant. I use Google Reader as an RSS aggregator and reader. It allows me to share articles that I am interested in or find relevant. I decided a few months ago to use that as my platform for sharing articles I feel merit highlighting in technology (and other) news. [OK I' m sorry forgot to mention this before...]

So If you want my hot items on technology either look at my Google Reader Share page or subscribe to the feed.

Are Facebook Apps the New Chain-Mail Syndrome?

I have had a profile on Facebook now for quite a few months (lost track to be honest). At the beginning my activity was simple enough, it consisted of just friends and posting from wall to wall.

After a few weeks, I started getting Facebook App invitations from all over the place. Some even multiple times as different friends invited me to use the same applications. The natural thing to do is to accept those invitations and add the new App to your profile. Now here is the interesting part, and the rant.

The system is conceived in such a way that when you add a new App, it automatically asks you to share it with your friends. You can of course skip this but the natural tendency is to send the new found App to your friends on your list. Now it dawned on me, yesterday, while chatting with some colleagues in Cambridge that this is almost like viral marketing or messaging (or whatever you want to call it). I would even go as far as to say this is almost like the old chain-mail, and chain-email stuff from the 80's and 90's! Remember those things, where you would receive them and in the message it would say, please forward this to your friends and colleagues etc etc etc! I am sure that this was not the original intent of the Facebook creators when they created an API and there are some good things about the extensions that Facebook supports. But...

Think about it! Facebook Apps are doing exactly the same thing right now... Some are even monetary chain-mails (yes some Apps allow you to opt into giving the creator money)! So what, well:

• My question is will this explode into the new viral marketing of the decade...
  
• Are we as humans still not evolved enough to be gullible like that (I am guilty of this)...
• Or do we just need to have this affirmation of our power to share new things and new information with our firends