I think invisible mode is the worst feature, ever. However, I haven’t always felt this way. When AOL Instant Messenger released its invisible status feature, I was elated. I was able to hide from Aunt Mary, while talking to my friends! Being seen online by friends and family that I didn’t feel like chatting with was annoying, so I thought the invisibility feature was the perfect solution. I no longer had to decide whether or not to be rude and ignore a response when someone saw the words “George is currently typing”. I quickly learned to disable the typing feature, but of course soon began to hate it when other people did it too. I felt the same way about being invisible. Being invisible worked for me back in 2002 when others used AIM away messages instead of the invisible option. I loved the privacy and freedom of being unseen. I became able to choose who I wanted to chat with when I wanted.
I have recently found that fewer and fewer of my friends are online. Is it that they are disconnecting themselves from the Internet or that they are just “hiding”? I think that it’s the latter. The question is, if we’re all invisible, then what is the point of AIM, Skype, or Gmail Chat?
So, we don’t want other people to be invisible, yet we all want to be. This makes us hypocrites in a sense, which is causing a negative feedback loop, a negative network effect. If fewer people are visible, then fewer people are talking online, and fewer people use Gmail Chat, Skype, and AIM. Invisibility decreases usage exponentially. It is creative destruction: this feature is killing their services. Mark Zuckerberg is smarter than his instant messaging competitors. Facebook does not have an invisibility feature. (I think that if you log onto your Facebook account through a third party client, like Adium, then you can go invisible but the vast majority of Facebook users message through facebook.com.) Facebook users have two choices, to be online or offline. There’s no in-between. Zuckerberg knows that an invisibility feature would cause fewer Facebook users to instant message, meaning users would be on his website for a shorter amount of time and his advertisements would have less exposure, leading to less revenue. Also, he knows that Facebook is addictive, so by not having an invisibility feature, he is compounding Facebook usage and revenue, but more importantly online communication.
I haven’t talked to my friend and former roommate since he has been abroad this semester. This morning I tried calling him on Skype, even though I wasn’t sure if he was online. It happened to work even though he was invisibly online. We got lucky and talked for over thirty minutes, (a long conversation for two dudes). If we were both visible more often we would have the opportunity chat more frequently. As it is, neither of us can get mad at each other because we’re both guilty of being invisible.
I now talk to most of my friends online through Facebook chat, not Skype or Gmail Chat. I used to wonder why AIM died and why Skype isn’t as popular as it could be. I think a big part of it is due to the fact that we’ve all been hiding. Facebook has it all figured out.
Facebook actually does have an invisible feature. If you have 'groups' of friends than you can choose to be offline for certain groups. I actually am more willing to use Facebook instant messaging because of this ability. I suppose it would be better to just delete the people I don't wish to talk to but I believe that continuously being 'invisible' to those people is good enough. The same goes for the ability to 'hide' the people who you don't like on your newsfeed. I do understand the trouble with trying to communicate with friends these days. It gets increasingly harder to find people which leads to a series of unnecessary calls to offline friends.
ReplyDelete-Laura
I agree with a lot of what you're claiming about the invisibility factor with other social chatting services. However, as an avid AIM user, I see that the quality of the Facebook chat service is unreliable. For example, sometimes I get really excited when I see that green circle around someone's chat name on Facebook, but once I click on their name, they automatically become offline. Its as though Facebook forgot to update the status of that one friend. Also, I frequently experience lag and dropped IM's from the Facebook service. But chat services aside, I still admire Facebook's ability to openly link real identities onto a virtual network.
ReplyDeleteFacebook has really made a great choice according to your analysis and Laura's description. I haven't thought that a tiny function could make such a big deal. However, I don't agree that Facebook has an invisible feature. For the skype or MSN or other IMs, if you choose to appear offline(invisible), you can see who is online and you could talk to your friends even though you appear offline. However, for Facebook, if you choose to offline for a group of friend, you don't see their statuses in Facebook chat anymore nor can you chat with them.
ReplyDeleteThis post brings up a very interesting point. When I was younger, I also used AIM with all my friends and really enjoyed the invisibility feature. For some reason, I have always been the type of person who likes to be able to hide myself and see others. Even so, Facebook's chat system simplifies chat while improving on it. The system is so easy to use - you click on someone's name and it brings up a chat box. You don't have to worry about voice calls, video calls, or screen sharing (although these features are useful). The chat bar is present on every single screen of Facebook. You can't go to a new page and lose a chat in the process; chats follow you around the site. And an important point - you can go "offline" to certain lists of friends, but you can't go invisible. It is important to know that if you can see someone online, then they can see you too. Transparency will help keep the chat system a useful and thriving feature.
ReplyDeleteI've definitely been one of those people who's always guilty of "hiding." Whenever I would be using AIM or Skype, I just automatically put myself on invisible just to be sure I wouldn't get overloaded with annoying people IMing me. Now that Facebook has chat, I generally opt to be "offline." Although I frequently complain to myself that Facebook should have an invisible feature, I think you make an excellent point. I'm clearly not the only one who chooses to be "invisible", so if the feature is made available, less people will be seen online. Facebook chat is an awesome feature for the site, but without users talking to each other, what good does it do?
ReplyDelete- Maria Ostovic
I don't find myself using facebook chat most of the time. If what I have to say is not an urgent message I send the person and email. A reason for this is what Justin mentioned. The service is unreliable and it gets annoying after a couple of errors. I use MSN Live messenger but lately it is starting to be unreliable too, especially the video service.
ReplyDeleteI prefer not to use facebook's chat service but I admit they have users locked in without having an invisible feature. This multiplies peoples usage because most people choose to be visible so they can chat with their friends, creating an effect where everybody appears online. Since so many people are on facebook, it is a second resort for communication, if not text messaging.
I usually have everything set to invisible, and FB set to offline, not because I don't want to communicate with people, but because I often walk away and leave myself logged in, only to return to "Are you there?" messages. AIM is smart enough to detect long absences, I don't know if FB is. I've never really tried it out.
ReplyDelete