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The Facebook Saturday night masacree

Thursday, June 11, 2009 by Dave Winer.

I admit to being confused by the event that Facebook has planned for Saturday Friday.  

According to the Sydney Morning Herald: "At 2PM on Saturday, the social networking site will allow members to register their own user names to make it easier for others to find their pages." 

That's 9PM Saturday Friday here in Calif, btw. 

What does it mean? Well, I'm sure I won't get dave or davew and there's a fair chance another davewiner will beat me to it. That means I'll have to go for one of my nicknames.  

Why don't I have a chance at dave? Well, they're doing the usual Silicon Valley user generated content thing -- playing favorites. According to TechCrunch they're favoring journalists they "work with." Oy. Should we read that as "Journalists who write stories we like?" As if journalists need another reason for readers not to trust them.  

But the thing that strikes me as weirdest of all is that after years of insisting that people only use their real names on Facebook, they've now set up a system where it will be virtually impossible for most people to do that, even if they want to.  

If I cared more about Facebook, I'd have more to say about this. 

I wish this period of the Internet would end, it's so exactly like AOL. I've seen this show before, I know how it ends. Only this time there won't be a Time-Warner to cash them out.  

PS: Read Anil Dash's hilarious takedown of this mini-debacle.  

PPS: For some reason Zuckerberg seems like a modern-day P.T. Barnum. You and me, we're either trained seals (the reporters) or fleas (users) in his three-ring circus.