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Ubuntu's Lucid Lynx to Facebook and Twitter you

Posted by Scott_Ruecker on · 7 comments
The Register; By Gavin Clarke
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PCs running Ubuntu will be getting more social thanks to changes that will set the popular Linux distro's look and feel for the next five years. Lucid Lynx, due this April, will bring social applications like Twitter and Facebook directly into the software, Ubuntu founder Mark Shuttleworth has said in an interview here.

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Comments (7)

LXer readers may recall reading DaniWeb TechTreasures' 'Facebook May Live to Regret Privacy Decisions' linked to at LXer via http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/130467 Also, there are ongoing and related concerns about Facebook as expressed in the 'Criticism of Facebook' Wikipedia, found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook

Twitter itself is not entirely in the clear. Worrisome privacy and security concerns regarding Twitter have already been brought up, e.g., - January 6, 2009's 'Security Issues Plague Twitter' found at http://www.bloggersblog.com/blog/106091 - August 18, 2009's 'Twitter Being Used As Botnet Command Channel' linked to at LXer via http://lxer.com/module/newswire/view/124471 Certainly even Twitter is aware of these particular issues, as revealed in the relatively much more recent January 25th piece 'Twitter pulls Flash feature over security concerns' found at http://news.zdnet.co.uk/security/0,1000000189,40004191,00.ht...

Regardless of Facebook's and Twitter's apparent embrace of F/OSS, one could STILL easily guess that a significant percentage of desktop Ubuntu users (never mind SysAdmins!) would rather NOT have such social applications enabled by default "directly into the software", as Shuttleworth has threatened to do.

The comments are pure gold. They're too vulgar to quote here, but the first one especially had me ROFLing.
Another thing I don't really care for. Why does it need to be smack dab middle in the desktop? Is putting the URL in firefox really too much for the unwashed masses?

Twitter is probably a wonderful service, but I have or see no use for it. I have been coaxed by friends to get a facebook account, but I really don't use it. I've tried for a few weeks, but the useless tripe that is put on there really annoys me. It's very nice to know you are sitting in the garden, that your spouse returned home, that you love whomever you love, that you are able to clip random quotes of the internet and paste them on your wall.

The problem with those extreme superficialities I see on facebook is that it doesn't tell me anything about the persons who post them. I don't have a feeling that I'm in contact with people who post such useless lines. What am I supposed to do with something like "Life is like a ray of sunshine"? Congratulate them with their positive attitude?

Whatever happened to picking up the phone and just asking if one can come over? I like personal face to face. It seems to go the way of the dodo. It seems social interaction has devolved in blurting little lines like "So true", "I agree", "Wish I was there" under random lines on a "social" website.

Maybe I need to use suicidemachine.org and kill my profile. I feel like facebook and its ilk are slowly killing any meaningful interaction with real people. For all I know some Eliza like program could be posting all the useless comments and I have a feeling I would be unable to spot the difference. Lucid for one is not going to get my facebook credentials.
r_a_trip, there is a lot of dreck on Facebook. There is a lot of dreck in any average conversation. I had to get a Facebook account for work and wasn't real thrilled about it, but it turned into a cool thing because people I hadn't talked to in years started finding me. Even not-tech-savvy friends and family are using it, which is something of a small miracle. It has it downsides, like any expectations of real privacy are a funny joke, and annoying people find me too. I'm not saying you have to like it, it turned out to be a useful thing for me.
@vv and @r_a_t....... I myself don't mind much Ubuntu's Twitter and Facebook innovations here, as I TOO really don't need this as much as someone like tuxchick with her Social Activism shtick out there in rural Oregan obviously does. I know enough about Ubuntu to just say NO. I can find out myself how to disable services like these which I have 0 use for, or can easily have access to other persons who will gladly show me how to disable such baggage.

I use neither Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, nor Google's new Buzz and if something is that urgent I TOO will pick up a phone (cellphone) or mark email as URGENT. This has regularly "turned out to be a useful thing for me" and for almost everyone that I have met IN PERSON. I find that blogging and going through comments/user-feedbacks like this are also great! The extra practice of avoiding such social-services is probably good security-wise. So far, it certainly hasn't seemed to hurt! yes my2c, no myspace ;)
Quoting:and annoying people find me too.


Ah, so I should 're-enable' my Facebook account so I can join them in finding you!
I find Twitter/Identica interesting and kinda fun at times, but I've never liked the idea of the Facebook/Myspace thing. But as said, there are privacy implications in all of them, depending on how you use them.

Case in point:

http://pleaserobme.com/

The site was put up to show how dangerous it is for people to use services that post where they are, when they left, etc. All they do is show the results of a Twitter search for posts from people using that particular service.

As has been seen since the beginning of easy to post content, it seems that for many people logic goes out the window when it comes to posting information online.

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