A news-feed patent... awarded to Facebook?

[blueerica]

CNN Story Here (http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/02/26/facebook.patent/index.html?eref=igoogle_cnn)

Err...

[BarTopDancer]

Hummm. Wouldn't the first "feed" be RSS?

[flippyshark]

*sigh* I've read this story twice, and I don't understand what it means.

I do know that Facebook was attractive to me when I signed up a little over a year ago because it seemed very simple and straight-forward - recent changes seem to have made it more complicated, less streamlined, and more daunting. (It's still not as ugly to look at as MySpace, though.)

I don't really "get it" yet, though. Someone tell me again why I need to be constantly updated on imaginary farm animals that my friends now have.

Sorry for this mostly irrelevant post.

[MouseWife]

No post is ever irrelevant!

LOL I love MyFarm, FarmVille. Sorry, I don't have a garden or a farm and kill every plant I've ever tried to grow. I've let few crops wither.

But I digress.

My daughter just recently signed up. She is such a curmudgeon!!! She said she isn't accepting certain people as friends because she KNOWS they just like to see what she's doing and to post stupid comments.

She then said 'WTF with all of these stupid farms and games? I don't want to know about this stuff and it takes up my f'in page!!!'

Well, what ya do...what I do. Say you have a friend who plays that {like me}. When it posts that I've found a green calf or a mystery egg, click the button on the side that says 'hide'. You'll get the choice to hide me or to hide that application. Done! Also, check your settings.

If people send you invites to stupid things all of the time, you can click either 'ignore this' or ignore all invites from this person.

You can delete posts from your wall.

Fun stuff. The 'Mexican Word of the Day'. Too damn funny. Hubster says it is racist but we are Mexican. I so get it. It es'plains a lot, Lucy!!

The bad thing is I waste too much time on those dang farms. Trying to cut back. I'm using too much time playing alone than 'socializing' which is the point, right? I may as well be a 15 year old locked in my room playing XBox with invisible people. :(

[alphabassettgrrl]

I avoid the news feed and stick strictly to the status updates. Makes my life much easier.

[MouseWife]

I need to try that. :snap:

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Flippy - hover over the annoying games and the word "hide" will appear. Click that, and you'll never see that specific game mentioned again. Without this ability I would have quit FB a long time ago.

Not only are the games annoying to everyone that isn't sucked into them, but they are mostly run by one company called Zynga, designed as a scam (http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/96024-Zynga-CEO-Admits-to-Being-a-Scammer), which was outed a while back. I'm really confused how anyone can continue enjoying the games after hearing about that.

[Ghoulish Delight]

You can play the games without ever dealing with the scammy bits. 99% of the time they were just ways to earn bonuses or get ahead faster, but not a requirement to play the game, which is how they were able to get away with it. The bonuses were indeed tempting as they really would have made the games easier, but only an idiot would look at 100 pages of "Free trial" offers and be suckered in.

As long as the games were fun, I didn't really give a crap about the scamminess because it was obvious scamminess, the kind I've been successfully avoiding on the internet for a decade+.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Still, I wouldn't want to assist in making the game popular after they were outed as scam artists. YMMV

[Kevy Baby]

Still, I wouldn't want to assist in making the game popular after they were outed as scam artists. YMMVMaybe you should talk to GD's wife and see if she can smack some sense into him

[MouseWife]

Yep, they all seem to be run by Zynga. But, I've never done a survey {although a friend did and lived to regret it...I wonder if she's ever gotten a refund...should ask her} but I did buy some $$ to buy some stuff. But, in my defense, I've always like to play games but now all of the systems are so advanced, FarmVille, et all are more my speed. And, I can't really kill anything, so, I'm good.

At my age, it is good to play games to keep the mind working. :D

I also play Bejeweled, Pathword and Typing Master {or soemthing like that}.

I've been wanting to hook up the ol' Super Nintendo so I can play Galaga. Or Galaxia.

FaceBook right now sucks for me because of family .

There is a quote going around saying that if you post it, it means that you really do like/love everyone on your friends list.

Really? Really FaceBook? Really? I'll copy and paste about the servicemen, bras, and my hubby/sons/daughters being the best. But today I really can not repost that one.

[alphabassettgrrl]

I generally ignore the mass-forwards, especially when they have a "97% of people won't post this and because of that they suck." Sometimes I'll post one if it amuses me but mostly they don't.

[MouseWife]

I don't open 99% of the links. I know I miss a lot but my computer sucks and it seems every thing slows it down.

I hate those ones that say you suck OR the emails that tell you you'll have bad luck if you don't respond.

[alphabassettgrrl]

Luckily, they're easy to ignore. :)

[blueerica]

In semi-related news:

CNN: Why I'm banking on Facebook (http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/ptech/03/04/cashmore.facebook/index.html?eref=rss_topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+rss/cnn_topstories+(RSS:+Top+Stories))

[Cadaverous Pallor]

That's really interesting. Talk about a lazy gift-giving opportunity!