Facebook and Amazon book question

[Montero]

I think book reading is the right place for this...

Hokay, I'm still getting my head around the social media sites like Facebook and all the buttons that people use to say things like +1 and Diggit etc.

I just bought a (SF) book on Amazon.co.uk and they promptly offered me a button linking to Facebook to say "I just bought this book". Has anyone pressed the button and gone the whole way through? Where does "I just bought this book" end up - on your Facebook profile or what?
What does this achieve? As in on Good Reads you can say "I'm currently reading this" etc and meet other people also interested in it. Is there a like thing somewhere on Facebook?

[Perpetual Man]

I'm not sure, I'd imagine that it would just post to your timeline/wall announcing that you have bought the book from Amazon.

[Menion]

It will show up un your FB profile where comments and other things appear. Linked to amazon saying what you just bought it, so others can see and maybe chat about it.
If you connect you acounts it will show everything you buy and add to your wishlist.

There are groups on FB for fantasy and SF readers.

[steve12553]

I'm normally not paranoid but Facebook bothers me. I use it to communicate with my kids who are several hundred miles away and old friends but I'm not about to allow it free access to very much information (buying habits, location et. al.) Just because the information is not being used for a bad purpose now (that we know of) doesn't mean it can't be.

[Menion]

Originally Posted by steve12553

I'm normally not paranoid but Facebook bothers me. I use it to communicate with my kids who are several hundred miles away and old friends but I'm not about to allow it free access to very much information (buying habits, location et. al.) Just because the information is not being used for a bad purpose now (that we know of) doesn't mean it can't be.

When Skynet take over, you don't want the droids to find you, right?

[Spade]

I'll post what I buy to Twitter sometimes, because somebody might find it an interesting topic of discussion, but I know my real life friends on Facebook aren't going to give a crap what I buy.

[Grunkins]

Facebook is a witch!

[Montero]

Thanks everyone.

Originally Posted by Menion

There are groups on FB for fantasy and SF readers.

Menion - could you post a link or a name? I did a search for FB groups on SF and Fantasy the other month and the ones that came up all seemed to be full of odd spam posts that were unrelated to SF or Fantasy.

[steve12553]

Originally Posted by Menion

When Skynet take over, you don't want the droids to find you, right?

I believe that a mixed metaphor (albeit Science Fiction).Personally if someone stoled my identity, I'm sure they'd soon give it back and look for a better one. But since the advent of the computer virus and other sort of hostile programs, I have no doubt that people and /or companies are using stored and recorded data to their advantage and at our expense. I prefer a certain amount of freedom, myself. More and more evidence of Big Brother shows up every day. Even if I try to ignore it. Netflix has an algorythm that tries to predict which movies and TV shows I would like. Amazon has one that tries to predict what I would like to buy. I personally prefer that my mind were my own. As Pink Floyd said over 35 years ago, "There's someone in my head and it's not me."

[nightdreamer]

I think it's primarily a way for them to get some free advertising out of you. Your friends are supposed to think "Oh, look! John Louise Popalambdominsky just bought The Attack of the Valium Leviathan. I respect his opinion. Maybe I should check it out." I never click those.

I also don't follow through on friends' links that require me to accept an app just to read an article. I also deleted an app from one of big news sources that posted to my wall every article I read. I'm sorry. I'm not online for their use.

[Warren_Paul]

I stopped using my facebook page a long time ago, FB is dodgy to the core. These days I'd be wary of every single app, so many of them are designed to exploit your account for advertising or to hack it even.

A married friend of mine ended up a member of a dating partner site she had never ever visited, because an app passed on all her profile details to the partner site without her knowing. Now she can't get rid of it because she doesn't have access to the dating site's member page because she wasn't the one who made the account. Had to just block the emails and try remove all trace from her FB page, but that doesn't stop the site from sending out her profile to single men around the world. Dodgy...

Just yesterday I saw two friends accounts get hacked and porn advertisements put on their wall.

I also remember a conversation that was leaked between the creator of FB and one of his staff members where he bragged about all these private details he had access to about millions of people. Not sure of the legitimacy of that story though.

So long story short, be very wary of every app and connection other websites make to FB - but Amazon should be safe enough. In their case I go with the general consensus, it's to get free advertising out of you.

[pyan]

Everything seems to be heading that way, though - at work, we were recently issued with Vodaphone 3G phones, so that jobs could be sent to us directly by email out in the field - now I find that my spam inbox on my own computer at home is getting 3-4 hits a day from people wanting to be my friend on something called foursquare.

Now, I'd never heard of this site before, and when I Google the name, it turns out to be "..a location-based social networking website for mobile devices, such as smartphones." But I've never contacted it or even seen it before - so there must be a leak in the system somewhere...

[steve12553]

I joined Facebook basically to keep track of family most of which is 600 - 700 miles away. I don't play games or download FB specific apps (I hate that abrieviation. It's a program or an executable) I never give my location and I keep it turned of in the Fortress of Soletude (I didn't say that out loud I hope). I fear for people who post pictures of there vacation at DisneyWorld while they're still there because they are letting other people (acquaitances and FB friends who they may not really know that their house is empty and ready to break into.

[Finnien]

Facebook has its uses - keeping track of friends who are busy starting their own families who live far away, or trying to see if any local friends want to get together for happy hour, or for discussing some upcoming movie/book/game that some critical mass of friends is interested in. However, it seems that every company out there sees your Facebook account as their route to free advertising. Watch a new movie trailer? They want to tell your Facebook friends. Try a new video game demo? It wants to post to your Facebook. And absolutely nobody you know cares. So it's a constant battle between the added social ties that Facebook allows if you're careful, and the deluge of spam that will irritate and alienate everybody you know if you're not.

[creynier]

Amazon and many other sites are using FB and twitter and other social media sites to promote their products basically and each time one of those buttons is clicked, a link from their site is all of the sudden on FB and is now reaching hundreds of other people. It's quite smart actually, but no real use for you.