Facebook: Give us your credit card and pals' addresses as GIFTS Why write on a friend's Facebook wall when you could send them cupcakes and they could chose the flavour of the cupcakes? That was Facebook's big pitch to users last night as they announced the rollout of Facebook Gifts at a glitzy New York media event. In an attempt to get people using their credit cards on the social network …
I don't know the addresses of ANY of my friends off-hand. A lazy way to buy a gift for someone without even having to look up their address could be quite cool... e.g if I could go to play.com or Amazon and just pick a FB friend as the recipient, or even automatically see their wish-list without having to find which "John Smith" wish-list I need.
It sounds a lot more a sensible way to monetise the site than paying to promote your posts, that's for sure. A Facebook integration that actually solves a problem.
i do see your point that it could be a handy way to buy people gifts, but to be honest, If I dont know someone well enough to know their address, then I doubt I will be sending them any gifts.
Then there is the massive issue of stolen credit/debit cards buying gifts for people and delivered to addresses other than the card holders address....
then the other point is that i would not trust facebook to safely hold on to a bag of salted peanuts, never mind my credit/debit card details !! How long would it be until facebook suggested a product they think I would like and pay for it on my card....
Not true about not knowing someone well enough to know address. Actually, I've faced this problem with some people I know very well and been to their places countless number of times but do not know the postcode. Agreed not difficult to find out, but was just saying it's possible you could know someone without knowing their address.
"If I dont know someone well enough to know their address, then I doubt I will be sending them any gifts"
That's rather short-sighted, isn't it? I'm no fan of farcebook (although I do have an account from uni days that I never really use anymore), but I recognise that an ability to send real things to people to whom one previously could not (owing to lack of familiarity etc) may well create a whole new market.
Just because you've never done something before should not in itself be an argument for avoiding doing it in the future: if that were the case, no progress would ever be made. Certainly some novelties add little value, on which one can justifiably argue that time ought not be wasted - but this novelty clearly does add some value: how much is yet to be seen.
"If I dont know someone well enough to know their address, then I doubt I will be sending them any gifts"
That's rather short-sighted, isn't it? I'm no fan of farcebook (although I do have an account from uni days that I never really use anymore), but I recognise that an ability to send real things to people to whom one previously could not (owing to lack of familiarity etc) may well create a whole new market...
...for stolen credit card numbers. Oh, yeah, give my credit card info and my friends' street addresses to a company that gathers and sells users' personal data to marketers, and all it takes is one good hack or data breach to reveal my credit card info to everybody and his cat -- oooooohhhhhh, sign me up for that!
I don't know the addresses of any of my friends "off-hand" either ... but they are all on my Rolodex[tm][1]. I do, however, know how to drive to their place (sans GPS, no less!), and have, in fact, actually enjoyed a meal at all their houses at least once in the last three months, and most have dined here at chez jake in the same time frame.
None of us use Facebook, to the best of my knowledge. No point. We we have lives.
[1] Yes, the paper variety. It works faster than the computer variety.[2]
[2] Don't get me wrong, I have 'em in teh compooter, too.[3]
[3] Yes, I have redundant off-site backup.[4]
[4] All under my control, not !GooMyFaceYouMStwit ...
Certainly. I have a couple[0][1]. Ask your local Gunsmith for details.
We also have a couple largish plastic spatulas that we use to get the last bits of molasses out of the critter-chow barrels ... They have the barn name & logo on 'em. Gift from the feed store.
[0] In .25, .32, .38, .40, .45 and .50 calibre.
[1] Wedding present[2] from my FIL ... Part of a custom Black Powder gun cleaning kit.
[2] I'm not vain enough to have anything monogrammed.
If you're concerned about FB getting your credit card details, you could use a prepaid or gift credit card. But think about these points (1)likely some other company is facilitating the cc transactions and fb isn't seeing that part anyway (2)if you have ever bought anything online, you gave your cc info to someone, so fb really isn't any different. Whoever you bought from before got your cc, address, phone, email, and buying preferences...and if you sent it as a gift got your friend's name and address at least.
Additionally, since all big companies keep these type of records (and you don't know what type of db security they do/do not have) and use the same cc processing warehouses, even brick and mortar cc purchases aren't "safe" or untraceable.
So if you're going to go all paranoid, then switch to cash only business. I don't see the point in demonizing fb purchases any more than any other online seller.
Most companies don't have a reputation for screwing up when it comes to personal details, or it's a genuine cock-up. Facebook have introduced too many features that have defaulted to 'everything public' for that to wash. Once, perhaps, but either they're demonstrably incompetent to keep making the mistake, or they're genuinely happy to pass on personal details (probably for a fee). There's already the issue of what information is made available to app developers, and I'm sure many people are unaware of exactly what in their profile gets passed on.
There's also the point that for many on-line companies, their business is merely one of providing a specific service or product in return for cash, so they're not routinely handling data in the same way that a social networking site does, especially one that wants to make money. The users are the product.
What is it with cupcakes? Any tool can make them, but they're suddenly seen as the pinnacle of culinary arts. When you get down to it, it's just a simple sponge-mix that a child could make, topped with far too much sweet icing in garish colours.
Actually, now I think of it, that's pretty much a metaphor for the current Web, but at least the cupcake can be eaten...
Charlie Brooker put it pretty well: "Actual slices of cake are infinitely superior, as are moist chocolate brownies, warm chocolate-chip cookies and virtually any other dessert you can think of. Cupcakes are for people who can't handle reality."
Personally I'd like somewhere that sells mail order sticky toffee pudding or treacle sponge. A tart delivery service might also be popular.
Gawd/ess only knows. I suspect your WWW simile is right on the mark, though. It's part of our current "I want it pretty, and I want it now, however vapid" culture.
On the bright side, "Hostess" so-called "foods" is trying declare bankruptcy. Hopefully the rest of the convenience so-called "foods" will follow, starting with fast-so-called-food chains.
Wow, we -are- pleased with ourselves tonight, aren't we?
You've made it quite clear that you're smarter, healthier, more discriminating, and quite likely thinner than the rest of us wretched slobs out there who like cupcakes and the internet (and smarter than us, too, what with your use of a paper rolodex, and more inclusive than us what with your careful hedge on the gender of our deities).
While you're at it, why not make it a clean sweep, and let us know some of the other things you have disdain for. Some quick ideas to get you going: Music made on computers? Any movie with a budget over $2m? Writers whose books appear on the NYT bestseller's list? Sugar? Violent video games? Technology which makes our lives easier?
Come on, I know there's a whole laundry list of reasons you're better than the rest of us[1] dimwit sluggards who eat Twinkies, use computers to communicate with people (you might not realize this, but you can use them to talk to people you know in person, too - try it!), and like a Big Mac now and then.
You've made a good head start on truly comprehensive arrogance; don't let the chance for perfection slip away!
[1] Another of which - using un-required footnotes as an affectation, rather than just including relevant thoughts as part of your writing, and eliminating irrelevant ones[2] entirely. Ensuring that people must have a long attention span to read your writing serves no purpose in this context. This is a comment thread, not James Fucking Joyce, so make your shit easy to understand.
[2] Look, I did it again! It's -meta-! Hot Christ and a box of crackerjacks!
"You really can produce things that other people appreciate, if you try."
Given that you clearly hold yourself in higher regard than you do me, and given that you have evidently failed yourself at the above suggestion, I feel it practical to immediately admit defeat rather than spend a large amount of time attempting to create food.
The other way of looking at it is that while your posts in this thread have garnered a net minus five thumbs-up, I have achieved minus one. Or, seen a different way, twice as many people have actually liked my one post as have liked all of yours put together.
Going by that metric, petty as it is, I have indeed produced something that more people appreciate than you have. Your consolation prize is this mug of beer.
What is it with cupcakes? Any tool can make them, but they're suddenly seen as the pinnacle of culinary arts...
I blame Those Fucking Hipsters™. Like food wagons, one more plain and simple pleasure overblown and ruined by them. Along with pretentious, overpriced haute cuisine food trucks, these days my city is infested with cupcake shops -- that's right, just cupcakes -- offering all manner of absurdly complex and overwrought cupcakes at heart-stopping prices. Seriously, man, I never thought in my life that people would be paying four friggin' dollars for a goddamn' cupcake.
So, not content with names and phone numbers of your friends, Facebook now wants addresses and all your credit card information?
Seriously, if you're stupid enough to buy cupcakes from Facebook then maybe you deserve everything the FBI has got on you.
Then again, maybe people should be educated better on data protection and privacy.
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