Site Analysis #1 – This paper is written in refutation/agreement with Rushkoff.

“Look at the colorful and confusing interfaces used on the World Wide Web compared with the text only bulletin boards of the early Internet.” – Bucy 2005, pg. 27

Facebook has met at a comfortable cross roads of Rushkoff’s previous and 2nd Internet age. White, blue, uncluttered and addictive describe the site. Unlike myspace.com or hi5.com where, commercials and annoying are what the user can often leave the site remembering. Rushkoff claimed that the early Internet was “text only” user friendly and very un-corporate.
The first age of the Internet is described as this blissful land of flowers and users skipped through it. No pollution or waste was there. Users met and discussed and created online communities that were not part of the supposedly rigid and foreordained world of reality. Rushkoff then tells us how companies and individuals began to think that money could be made through banner ads, services, stores, and subscriptions, and in his opinion. Years after the first tech bubble burst Facebook was created to service college students networking needs. It was made with the intent to turn a profit by marketing simplicity. After successfully networking most internet using college students it turned to photos and more recently video. Facebook has its own bureaucracy. Limited and similar forms for all users puts all users on the same footing. How they fill these areas is entirely up to the user of course and there are certain boxes that leave room for just about anything, i.e. the about me section. At the same time the boxes that limit people also help connect. By listing musicians and movies that are your favorite in the proper box you can literally be connected to anyone who has that same interest within your network at the click of a mouse. This is a very real representation of Rushkoff’s dream, sub communities based on user interests.
The corporate aspect of Facebook is there. Clean commercials on the side and sometimes bottom of the page advertise with class and don’t fit into the “annoying banner ad” mold. I think this satisfies the user because they don’t immediately zone the ad out because they trust that it won’t be blinking, or feature rows of free smiley faces. This also satisfies the sponsors because they trust that the user will at least glance at the ad. With money being thrown into the equation the company has a reason to change and keep up with the fast changing norms of its communities. On the other hand some of the best programs ever written were made for the open source land of flowers.
The opening quote and the paragraphs surrounding it state that the web browser is designed around the user to be pulled into ads, and stores. While this may be true it has also made the not so computer savvy able to connect. Where money can be made the companies pave the way. They make the Internet accessible for profit. Side effects are profit and everyone using the Internet. This means, inevitably, more communities, more theories, more weirdness. Another interesting aspect of Facebook is the users ability to create limited ads and birthday greetings in place of the conventional ads.
Rushkoff seemed to be hoping that the Internet would be exempt from human ways. What new frontier hasn’t or isn’t being capitalized? New options, challenges and industries will be created. The Internet is just another frontier that came into being because of other frontiers that had been exhausted. It solved the challenges of universities and the military and was then used to connect people, then businesses. This should not come as surprise to Rushkoff because he himself was advocating that now “we must accept responsibility for the course of human events from now on.” And unless we explore and use new frontiers we won’t get this little blue ball, as he puts it, anywhere.