Some shout outs to Facebook

Betty White hosted SNL last night, thanks mostly to a Facebook based petition. She thanked them, but went on to rip them, too.

I really have to thank Facebook. I didn’t know what Facebook was, and now that I do know what it is, I have to say, it sounds like a huge waste of time. I would never say the people on it are losers, but that’s only because I’m polite. People say ‘But Betty, Facebook is a great way to connect with old friends.’ Well at my age, if I wanna connect with old friends, I need a Ouija Board. Needless to say, we didn’t have Facebook when I was growing up. We had phonebook, but you wouldn’t waste an afternoon with it.

Much was made of her being the oldest host. The only other octogenarian host that I can think of is Ruth Gordon who hosted in 1977 at the age of 81. Last night, much was made of Betty White's age, but nobody mentioned that the announcer was oldest of all-- Don Pardo is 92. The show also had a lot of role reprisals from former cast members: Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Ana Gasteyer, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph, Molly Shannon.

Meanwhile, people are starting to notice Facebook may not be all it is cracked up to be- just like myspace, second life, aol/yahoo communities, etc. etc. before it. This article appeared on Slashdot and notes the problems that crop up when people have different expectations of what a service will do for them and require of them.
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As for me, the social community I still like the best is simple Usenet. Boy! that is old school.

Update: The NY Times has a story about the coding group at NYU creating Diaspora. Wired mentions them here.

Second Update: 2010-05-21 xkcd

is promoting Diaspora.