Facebook

Steam power was the biggest technological innovation to hit America and the world. It created an industrial revolution, changed the marketplace and established the long standing imbalance of wealth.

The dehumanization of making affected not only the workers but the products being produced. The end of craft signaled the beginings of crap. Humans fought this trend with the slow progress of unionism. Ron Reagan effectively ended unions in America and manufacturing migrated to China, India and other third worlds.

This is a powerful example of the rudeness of technology being activated before any consideration of protocol.

The telephone is an example of a new technology that underwent detailed socialization. Conversation was deemed private, booths were built; even yammering teenage girls abused the privilege in the privacy of their rooms. Before the explosion of personal communication devices the telephone was widely regarded as an nuisance. Secretary's were hired, answering machines abounded and no one would dare call during the dinner hour.

Now we live in the era of the lie of connectivity. The onslaught of digitized innovation has completely overridden any pretense of protocol or socialization. Mobile phones were once the tools of traveling business types, keeping them connected to the office and clients. They were expensive and dependent on clunky radio technology. Someone crunched the numbers, recognized the desire and invested in building broadcast towers throughout the land. Now everyone has a handheld communtication device (just like Dick Tracy) and no or little idea of how they should be implemented.

I watched Mark Zuckerberg (the Facebook boy) on 60 minutes last Sunday. He obviously had no idea about the implications of his social innovation. He did repeat the mantra sounds 'friend/sharing' many times and this is a benign but false premise.

My Space is failing because it was founded as a dating site (as Facebook was originally intended) and it morphed into a self promotional liars milieu as any dating site might become.

The falsehood of Facebook revolves around digitized connectivety that races away from intimacy. Friends at a distance, safe connections and manageable familiarity belies the human need for contact. Our basic animal nature requires prescence, conversation and affection (or conflict).

I always approach innovation as as an opportunity to form a tool, address a problem or share an idea. I think Facebook could become a platform for the sharing of ideas, proliferation of knowledge and a tool of practicality. Zuckerberg, I fear is using this platform to extract information, target ads and extract fortune. Things Google does obviously and honestly. Mark Zuckerberg did not become a billionaire by being naive.