Facebook: The next mass convergence of Deaf People?

November 7, 2007 10:34 am

In the last few months, there has been a massive resurgence of Deaf people over at Facebook, a website dedicated to social networking.

There have been other social networking websites in the past where many Deaf people registered and set up links to their friends.  Does Ringo back in 2003 ring a bell for anyone?

As one of the first social networking sites, Ringo may have been too early on the Internet scene. They never figured out how to fully capitalize on the massive interlinking between their users and were never able to move ahead.  Ringo eventually end up being acquired by Tickle.com.  At the time of the acquisition, there were more than one million members.  Tickle.com’s decision to attempt to monetize by charging for full membership led to an instantaneous demise of the site.  All the Deaf people promptly scattered from this online social structure.

When I joined Facebook, mostly out of curiosity, I was mindful of what happened with Ringo four years earlier.  I was watching to see if they would end up following the same trajectory towards self-destruction.

So far, Facebook seems to be the hottest thing since Google and they have not been the ones to rest on their laurels.  It appears that the stars and planets have aligned up for Facebook.  They have been able to hire a highly competent staff who keep on releasing new features and making the best use of the interlinking social data that their users take the time to painstakingly enter into the Facebook system.  They have come up with interesting strategies and have successfully implemented them on a timely basis.  Unlike Ringo, they may have found a real way to capitalize on the data.

The closeness of the Deaf community is certainly magnified on Facebook with so many Deaf people knowing the same peers.  Our community must seem almost like a recursive algorithm to Facebook :-)

It will be very interesting to see where Facebook goes in the future with all this data under their belt.  What makes their current situation all the more exciting is that Facebook has managed to incur the wraith of the perpetual Internet underdog, Google.  Google is so terrified of the potential of Facebook that Google has encircled Facebook with many other social networking partner sites under the banner of OpenSocial API.

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  • MM
    Personally I have nothing to with facebook (Or Bebo), because online viz-a-viz deaf, I am more interested in the politics of it, I see socialising as a face to face thing, and don't feel comfortable you can conduct any sort of social life as a deaf person via a computer only. To use it as a communication device to meet up in person is fine, but text telephony can do that as well. The sad part of it, is that using facebook and such sites tends to infer deaf people are not wanting to get invol;ved in the politics of deafness any more, this is glaringly obvious in the UK where campaigning and other issues undertaken by deaf people has virtually ceased. I've read what other deaf say about facebook, and even some of what passes as 'socialising' on that site, and was not impressed with the utter inanity of a lot of it, does anyone really care what you had for breakfast, or how much you drank last night ? I don't, it's trivia, and trivia is the way in, to total apathy.... realistically (UK-wise),it is said less than 2% of the popuyaltion will be ineterested in doing things like joining groups to advance access and stuff, the deaf area used to be an exception where a very high number would turn out to back up the 'cause', now the deaf are less involved that hearing are in anything.... you could mention Twitter as well, but that is totally absurd...
  • Rene Visco
    I agree with kottke's view because FaceBook is still a gated garden. It's still closed system despite opening API for developers. I would say FaceBook API for developers is similar to advertisers' access to AOL servers.

    DeafRead can publish RSS feeds from Wordpress.com blogs. Publish Flickr streams etc. It's open media. Same thing with Digg. It's open to users. How refreshing!

    As for FaceBook we are required to JOIN in to be in the SYSTEM. I would call it "closed".

    I agree that Google's OpenSocial is an impressive concept. Let's see how it unfolds.

    One thing's for CERTAIN is that Microsoft is a big time (sore) loser in this social networking battle.

    :)
  • Jessica
    It is a good way to reconnect with people I haven't seen in years since college years mostly. Fun to see how they are doing and all. Most of them don't live close enough for me to see in person so Facebook is a good way to connect all in one place. There you can just sign in and check on updates such as new pictures, announcements, etc where we can share with a group of people all at once. At first, I was hesitant to join because I wasn't really into Ringo or MySpace but I have found it to be fun and simple. It is perfect for the time I have to invest into it which is not a lot. You can just decide how much you want to do with it.
  • IamMine
    Aw, J.J. - you mean, you would not even invite over the internet deaf vloggers?

    Stuck up.

    ;)

    Or are you afraid that you would only get a few friends like I do?

    I have myspace and have had it for a couple of years...and still only 19 friends to this day. :D

    Facebook? I joined a couple of months ago - 11 friends, maybe.

    Quality counts, ya know? I prefer only those I really know, not just because that person is a friend of my friend's next door's two time over cousin... ;)

    One drawback to facebook is that when you don't have time and by the time you go and check in - whoa! So many fricking invitations to various applications!!

    Do I want to add this application or not?

    It's good and fun if you have a lot of time on your hands. :)

    JJ - get your rear butt on facebook. ;)
  • J.J. Puorro
    Bleh...just looks like a "private internet party" for you and your friends....me? I invite people over..you know? REAL people. (wink)
  • It'll be interesting to see if the market forces at work now will make Facebook open up to other sites. It was a brilliant move by Google to use OpenSocial to put a lot of pressure on Facebook to do so.

    Still, I don't think that Facebook can be compared as being AOL II. Facebook permits outside developers to have access to their API so that they can create applications on the Facebook platform so it's not as closed system as AOL was.
  • Rene Visco
    http://www.kottke.org/07/07/facebook-vs-aol-redux

    i agree with this smart guy's comment about FaceBook.

    It's AOL Redux!
  • J.J. - Setting private in your own profile, and invite your favorite friends to connect Facebook, they can have ability to view your profile fully.

    If friend connect you as friend whom you don't like, you can put limited space for them to view, but they might never knew those spaces are private.

    VP, E-mail and IM is part of two-way conservation, how can you spend so much time telling each of your friends individually in their room with full of walls and ceiling, to share 'n tell your social life?

    Your boat dropped the anchor.
  • J.J. Puorro
    Sure you can control your profile, but if it's private...what's the point of it? How will you meet people if they can't view your profile? You'll only forward your profile to people you already know, right? Why not VP or E-mail or IM them instead? I don't get it.....

    Whatever floats your boats...
  • Jared,

    I love Facebook...thanks to Roger Kraft's recent ASL Vlog got my curosity about facebook. But know what? I noticed that few people use both FB and DeafRead. The friends I made or share on FB are not Bloggers or ASL Vloggers. They may have read DeafRead.com but I do not know. Would be nice to see more ASL Vloggers on DeafRead.com

    David
  • The simple way to defend yourself with your background information on your profile information.

    I have been monitoring and analyze myself on my profile page to ensure that information not sensitive.

    J.J. Puorro - how can you know to view the information of your social networking friends (such as status, photos, etc)? Don't you have networking friends in private?
  • Jon M
    J.J. Puorro sounds like one of those people in the 1990s who said similar thing about computers, e-mail, and the Internet.

    I admit, I was initially reluctant to join Facebook. Once I saw I could control my profile, even make myself "private" so people who do not know me cannot see my friends, or any activities that goes on Facebook, I felt a little bit better.

    Until last week when I found out my wife who was surfing on my profile mistakenly added an application. Shortly afterwards, pornographic images began appearing on my profile. I can imagine that if I was looking for a job and I had a public profile, I would probably have lost the job. I'm glad I'm not and I simply removed the application. I keep my profile simple and lean to prevent strange incidents like this from occurring again.

    There was an article recently about Facebook, while considered "hot" now, is losing it's reputation in the young crowd because older people (probably the same ones that predicted doom with the Internet and e-mail) joined Facebook. It's no longer "cool" when teenagers are mingling on the same site that their grandparents are on. :)
  • J.J. Puorro
    Comments:

    1.) I absolutely refuse to be a part of Facebook or MySpace...I just feel that you cannot control your networking on the Internet as you can in real life.

    2.) Folks need to be careful about what they put up on their profiles because it is becoming common for employers or people doing background checks to check those sites for existing profiles and look at who you are associated with and etc...
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