Heartbreak in Facebook world

jw5 said:

It's probably true that many people use facebook for the right reasons and intentions, to keep in touch with friends and to maintain contacts. But there are also many opportunists who use it for their own selfish reasons.

A friend once told me this story about his ex colleague. This guy has my friend's e-mail address and mobile phone number and one time, he sent my friend an invitation to join his facebook contact list by e-mail. Another time, he called my friend's mobile phone. When my friend called the number back, he realised that it was his office number but he wasn't in.

Not once did this ex colleague send any e-mail messages or any sms text or called my friend from his home or mobile phone. He came to the conclusion that this guy was not interested in him, but only interested to know about him.

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hey i also encountered this.

This bloody ex bmt mate of mine. Same platoon but different section got his sececrtary to call me a few years after we all ORD. Take note he's a bmt mate and he didn't get posted to the same unit or vocation as me hence after BMT we didn't keep in contact. In fact he wasn't even my close fren during bmt so we hardly ever talked and yet this bugger could not even personally call me up but get someone else to.

At that time i was actually pretty glad to meet an old acquaitance but i somehow wasn't able to meet him during those times i arranged with his secretary hence they were always cancelled and she always called me the next day. Thinking back i was glad i didn't meet him and actually stood him up on the appointments unintentionally. Bugger was trying to make use of me.

in sinkeland, facebook is often use to meet char bor wan lor.
add them in, makes frenz, chat, go out, den fuck

harvest info?

no_faith said:

in sinkeland, facebook is often use to meet char bor wan lor.
add them in, makes frenz, chat, go out, den fuck

harvest info?

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Haha so you got an account and was accosted by many guys there?

Received_by_Kings said:

Haha so you got an account and was accosted by many guys there?

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hehe i not gay wor.

i also have fb acct but it was dormant which my frenz always say.

how abt u?

Leongsam said:

Facebook caters to the deadliest of the 7 deadly sins - VANITY! The fact that it is wildly popular does not alter the fact that the millions who have signed up have effectlvely handed the details of their lives to an entity which is not accountable to any form of authority whatsoever.

To make matters worse, once you've opened an account, you'll NEVER be able to remove the info from the web. It's there in perpetuity. Activities that you were so proud of when you were 20 may not go down that well with the board of directors interviewing you for that CEO job you've been dreaming about all your life.

There is absolutely no reason why any person would need to share the details of their lives with anyone via facebook. Who my friends are is my business and mine alone. My images are shared in encrypted form.

When I google my real name, only a single entry appears and it's from a digitized school magazine printed way back when computers were mainframes.

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you are assuming that people who created an account post info abt themselves in fb. Not if you use the acc to track down info about others . You also can't deny that many people found their long lost friends in fb, it is quite heartwarming to be able to establish the link you have lost.

Many other sites are similar to fb, it's all up to individuals how much personal info one enters into the internet. Many have no qualms about it, either they are ignorant or they simply don't care. So if they don't, why should you? I still think you have no right to call people idiots . You sounded like the Smart Ass who call people who used Apple products stupid. If you don't know who, I bet the bros here can help you out. If not, you can google it yourself.

ashjaw said:

You sounded like the Smart Ass who call people who used Apple products stupid. If you don't know who, I bet the bros here can help you out. If not, you can google it yourself.

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I am a smart ass. That's why I can recognise an idiot when I see one.

The herd instinct is alive and well.

Actually FB started well but has gone rogue as they have very little controls in the first default mode. It is now the best site to harvest personal accounts and link associates. All the leading firms that offer backgorund checks such as CRG, Hill Knowlton, First Advantage always check FB as part of their offering. People are now harvesting the information and impresonating others in jobs applications. I am sure there are many others who have been rejected for jobs and have no clue why.

Linkedin is the now the standard for those seeking better control and it is now also used more relaibly for social networking when it was original;y meant for business

Twitter is far more valuable to society many times over than FB. It is now used for catastrophes, incident management, emergencies and during the Haiti disaster it came into its own. Following celebrities is now secondary. In Europe for the snow caused travel disruption that is occurring now, all the major agencies are asking people to check twitter for the latest update.

I am not sure if you are aware but there is a sad trend in FB, when someone in the public face dies, a race immediately begins to create a obituary page to see how many hits they get even though the person creating the page has no clue who the dead person is. It is a worldwide phenomenon. Darren Ng stabbing case also resulted in a stranger doing the obituary page and his friends complained.

Even our local politicians don't know how to secure their FB page. Only Viv B is seems to know how to do it.

ashjaw said:

Many other sites are similar to fb, it's all up to individuals how much personal info one enters into the internet. Many have no qualms about it, either they are ignorant or they simply don't care. So if they don't, why should you? I still think you have no right to call people idiots . You sounded like the Smart Ass who call people who used Apple products stupid. If you don't know who, I bet the bros here can help you out. If not, you can google it yourself.

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Leongsam said:

Anyone who uses facebook is an idiot.

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wahlaneh...
why call urself idiot?

Jah_rastafar_I said:

hey i also encountered this.

This bloody ex bmt mate of mine. Same platoon but different section got his sececrtary to call me a few years after we all ORD. Take note he's a bmt mate and he didn't get posted to the same unit or vocation as me hence after BMT we didn't keep in contact. In fact he wasn't even my close fren during bmt so we hardly ever talked and yet this bugger could not even personally call me up but get someone else to.

At that time i was actually pretty glad to meet an old acquaitance but i somehow wasn't able to meet him during those times i arranged with his secretary hence they were always cancelled and she always called me the next day. Thinking back i was glad i didn't meet him and actually stood him up on the appointments unintentionally. Bugger was trying to make use of me.

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Did you find out how he was trying to make use of you?

By asking his secretary to call you, he could have just been trying to howlian, by hinting that he is a big shot with a secretary.
Some people are like that, just want to howlian.
Some others have no interest in knowing you or being your friend, they just want to know about you, so that they can compare, or gossip with other people.

thanks scroobal for the info.
What I am trying to point out is whether it's FB or any other social sites, individuals must know that if one puts any info in the net, be prepared to be tracked. If one doesn't know this, then he needs to be educated. There are also people who know and really don't care. Even though there are -ve points, there are +ve ones as well. Just use them to your advantage. So I feel that it's still not right for Mr Sam to call people IDIOTS even though he thinks he is a smart ass by generalising.

scroobal said:

Actually FB started well but has gone rogue as they have very little controls in the first default mode. It is now the best site to harvest personal accounts and link associates. All the leading firms that offer backgorund checks such as CRG, Hill Knowlton, First Advantage always check FB as part of their offering. People are now harvesting the information and impresonating others in jobs applications. I am sure there are many others who have been rejected for jobs and have no clue why.

Linkedin is the now the standard for those seeking better control and it is now also used more relaibly for social networking when it was original;y meant for business

Twitter is far more valuable to society many times over than FB. It is now used for catastrophes, incident management, emergencies and during the Haiti disaster it came into its own. Following celebrities is now secondary. In Europe for the snow caused travel disruption that is occurring now, all the major agencies are asking people to check twitter for the latest update.

I am not sure if you are aware but there is a sad trend in FB, when someone in the public face dies, a race immediately begins to create a obituary page to see how many hits they get even though the person creating the page has no clue who the dead person is. It is a worldwide phenomenon. Darren Ng stabbing case also resulted in a stranger doing the obituary page and his friends complained.

Even our local politicians don't know how to secure their FB page. Only Viv B is seems to know how to do it.

Click to expand...

jw5 said:

Did you find out how he was trying to make use of you?

By asking his secretary to call you, he could have just been trying to howlian, by hinting that he is a big shot with a secretary.
Some people are like that, just want to howlian.
Some others have no interest in knowing you or being your friend, they just want to know about you, so that they can compare, or gossip with other people.

Click to expand...

It was so apparent. The thing is when his sec first called me i was quite happy to want to meet up with an old accquaitance but after a while i realised this fella is a bugger.

Leongsam said:

I am a smart ass. That's why I can recognise an idiot when I see one.

The herd instinct is alive and well.

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I suppose you look into the mirror quite often?

Agree. The trouble with Sam is his dry wit which tends to go overboard.

ashjaw said:

thanks scroobal for the info.
What I am trying to point out is whether it's FB or any other social sites, individuals must know that if one puts any info in the net, be prepared to be tracked. If one doesn't know this, then he needs to be educated. There are also people who know and really don't care. Even though there are -ve points, there are +ve ones as well. Just use them to your advantage. So I feel that it's still not right for Mr Sam to call people IDIOTS even though he thinks he is a smart ass by generalising.

Click to expand...

Taken from Yahoo website

Facebook is the most popular site in Singapore, according to web traffic and ranking tool Alexa. (AFP File Photo)

Do you share daily events with your friends, upload photos of your holiday trip, poke your friends, and indulge in an online game — all on one website? If you do, you are likely to be a Facebook user.

Statistics from Facebook’s Advertising tool and Singapore’s census of population shows that 48.2 per cent of Singaporeans own a Facebook account, making the island one of the most Facebook-savvy countries in Asia. As of December 15, 2010, there were 2.46 million Facebook users and an estimated 5.10 milllion people living in Singapore.

While it is generally more accurate to obtain data using the number of internet users instead of the entire population, such up-to-date information is difficult to get.

The Palo Alto-based social networking giant saw a 21.8 per cent increase in sign-ups in the country from April to December 2010. In April, Singapore had 2.02 million Facebook users, and the number is expected to continue rising steadily next year. In July 2009, there were only 1.38 million users in Singapore.

Teenagers aged 14-17 in Singapore make up one tenth of the pie while the majority comes from the 25-34 age group, which has 824,000 users, according to statistics from CheckFacebook.

In an interview with Yahoo! Singapore, 28-year-old ads designer Joel Tai, who joined Facebook 3 years ago, said he spends at least 21 hours each week on the social networking site.

“I spend roughly 21 hours a week on Facebook, and I usually check out ‘pages’ and read friends’ updates. I joined Facebook because I foresee it as the next big thing to ‘socialise’ and even find long-lost friends,” he said.


According to Facebook's Advertising tool, there were 2.46 million users living in Singapore as of December 15. (Screenshot from Facebook site)

Facebook is currently the dominant social networking site in Singapore. According to web traffic and ranking tool Alexa, it’s the most popular website in Singapore, followed by Google, and then YouTube.

In May 2008, Friendster was still the most popular social network in Singapore with 907,000 monthly unique visitors as compared to Facebook at 533,000, according to comScore.

Friendster was almost two times bigger than Facebook at that time, but before long, a stunning and rapid fall from grace meant it was soon overtaken by Facebook. Many made the transition when online games started to gain traction on Facebook.

Singaporeans’ near obsession with Facebook has made local companies and government agencies jump on the bandwagon. A Straits Times report in February this year revealed that at least 41 of the 81 People’s Action Party (PAP) Members of Parliament are on Facebook, up from 25 the same month a year ago.

Similar to Barack Obama’s election in 2008, the main objective was “to boost its cyber-presence at a time when younger people are spending more time on the Internet”.

Singapore’s Facebook penetration rate is on par with Hong Kong at 48.3 per cent. In July 2010, Hong Kong had 3.41 million Facebook users while its latest June 2010 population data stands at 7.06 million.

On the other hand, technologically-advanced Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea have much lower Facebook penetration rates — 1.42 per cent and 5.14 per cent respectively.

In fact, Japan’s Mixi and mobile-only social network Mobage Town and South Korea’s Cyworld are more popular than Facebook. These local social networking sites are designed to suit their respective language, culture and online habits.

17-year-old high school student Gyu-min Yee from Republic of Korea agrees that Facebook is not a household name in his country.

“Facebook is not popular at all in South Korea. Most of us use Cyworld, a social networking website by Nate, a Korean web portal,” he tells Yahoo! Singapore in an e-mail reply.

Will Singaporeans make the switch if a home-grown company were to develop a social networking site that has the same functionalities as Facebook, but more suited to the local culture?