From: Phillip Gawlowski <cmdjackryan@...>
Date: 2008-04-30T14:36:11+09:00
Subject: Re: Hey, try out Flock

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Patrick Aljord wrote:

| Unfortunately most people still think the internet is internet
| explorer or that "blue e" so don't expect them to know that kind of
| stuff (though I'd expect that a rails subscriber would know that).
| Facebook and Linkedin et all do know this is going to happen and it
| does happen a lot, so yes, they are at fault too. Twitter I think
| doesn't do this, it just checks if your contacts are on twitter IIRC.

If any one is at fault, then us developers, writing applications where
dialog boxes are as helpful as 'An error occurred. The techie tech
cannot tech the tech. Try to tech the tech instead? [OK] [Cancel]'

If developers teach users that text on a button, and by extension on the
screen is an amount of technobabble to rival your average Star Trek
episode, what do you expect?

However: Facebook, LinkedIn, et. al. cannot prevent user stupidity in
that area, short of enumerating each and every mailing list in
existence. And how well *that* works demonstrates your anti-virus
scanner on the weekly update.

They do what they can, by making the invitations a two-step opt-in
process. They do not blindly fire off emails (well, reputable
networking/social sites, anyway) without your say-so.

They cannot replace the human. And if we teach the human in front of a
computer that they are hard and mysterious, that's what we get.

- --
Phillip Gawlowski
Twitter: twitter.com/cynicalryan
Blog: http://justarubyist.blogspot.com

Ytterby, Sweden begat 4 elements: Yttrium, Ytterbium, Terbium, Erbium
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