facebook客户端 MenuTab Pro for Facebook for Mac v6.9
苹果软件园官方微信号,求关注:
简介MenuTab for Facebook是一个令人难以置信的华丽的好用的应用程序，可以直接从你的Mac的菜单栏快速访问你的Facebook帐户。它是Mac App Store最流行的应用之一。
类似软件推荐
详细介绍MenuTab for Facebook是一个令人难以置信的华丽的好用的应用程序，可以直接从你的Mac的菜单栏快速访问你的Facebook帐户。它是Mac App Store最流行的应用之一。这是一款非常有趣的软件哦~让你对facebook的上瘾程度更加的提升，是你不需要打开浏览器就快速进入facebook最好的方法。可以实时的更新你 最新的新鲜事到桌面，这里有订阅新闻、主页、收件箱、照片等等，点击菜单栏的图标就可以检查你的账户，漂亮的小窗口面里有杰出的界面。可以设置形象化的提 示、支持音频提示、可以设置更新速度，快来试试吧！
来自Mac App Store官方介绍THE ULTIMATE FACEBOOK APP FOR YOUR MAC - PRO VERSION
This is the Pro version of the best Mac app for Facebook with these amazing extra features: Color-coded menubar alerts, Desktop mode with chat, Popup notifications, Stealth mode, Full screen support and much more!
MenuTab Pro for Facebook is an incredibly slick and gorgeous app for quickly accessing your Facebook account directly from your Mac's menu bar. It is one of the most popular and actively used apps on the entire Mac App Store, with over 2 million happy users!
Why is MenuTab Pro the best app of its kind? Good question, allow us to explain just how fully loaded this app is:
? Instant access to Facebook via your Mac's menu bar:
Quickly take a peek at your Facebook account at the click of a button and also via its customisable hot key (ctrl + F).
? Awesome color-coded notifications with audio alerts:
We've made it really simple to distinguish between new notifications via our menu bar icon. A gold icon means you have
red is a new wall post/like/ and green is a new inbox message. Finally, a flashing blue icon indicates a new chat message from a friend!
? Choose between desktop & mobile modes:
Want a no-nonsense clean cut view of your Facebook account? Then the mobile mode is your best bet. For those that want the full Facebook experience, just toggle over to the desktop mode and enjoy.
? Popup notifications support:
Our customers asked for it and we delivered. Each of the notification types explained above now have their own corresponding notification popup. You do not need Growl installed for these popup notifications to work. However, if you do have Growl installed, you'll be able to customise the popup notification bubbles via the Growl app itself. If you are running Mountain Lion, then you get notification center alerts!
? Facebook Chat support:
Facebook chat with all the trimmings, just like it is in your web browser, but with the added benefit of notifications :)
? Ninja stealth mode:
Use the nifty opacity control slider to determine the transparency of your MenuTab Pro app window. Stealth mode lets you sneakily check on your Facebook news feed etc without it catching the eyes of others :)
? Resizable window:
Just as it states, resize the tab/window to your liking!
? Slick touch gestures support:
One of our most loved features, feel right at home with touch gestures support for back/forward and scrolling.
? Fullscreen support for OS X Lion users:
The full Facebook experience with no distractions!
? Accessibility options:
Customise the font size, use the right click menu options such as text to speech and make life easier with standard hotkeys like cmd + R to refresh. Ah, it's the small things that make us happy :)
? Regular free updates:
MenuTab Pro is one of the most actively maintained and updated apps on the store and we aim to keep it that way! Please spread the word and keep sending us your feedback!
Get MenuTab Pro whilst it is on sale! We're sure you'll love the app and join our rapidly growing Facebook fan page of more than 85,000 people: http://www.facebook.com/FaceTab
Legal Note:
- MenuTab is a 3rd party application for Facebook and is in no way endorsed or affiliated with Facebook Inc
- Facebook and the Facebook Logo are trademarks of Facebook Inc…更多… v6.9版本新功能- Speed Optimizations
- Bug fixes…更多…
相关截图 图片数： 5 张(点击图片查看大图)
上一条：下一条：
下载列表 文件数： 3 文件大小：
& facebook客户端 MenuTab Pro for Facebook for Mac
苹果软件园官方微信号,专为大家推送苹果相关知识百科,求关注！
小编微信号，有关Mac问题不懂的欢迎扫码咨询,知无不言言无不尽^_^
MAC社交热门APPSMessenger和Facebook有什么区别？_百度知道
Messenger和Facebook有什么区别？
我有更好的答案求助知道网友
前者是iPhone自己的通讯工具像微信一样，后者是像微博一样的，不同的公司，不同的使用方式，而且message一定要联网和与苹果手机用户
本回答被提问者和网友采纳
2条折叠回答
为您推荐：
其他类似问题
facebook的相关知识
换一换
回答问题，赢新手礼包
个人、企业类
违法有害信息,请在下方选择后提交
色情、暴力
我们会通过消息、邮箱等方式尽快将举报结果通知您。Super Light for Facebook
大小: 0.2MB
下载次数: 238万
打开二维码扫描软件，将手机摄像头对准网页上的二维码扫描即可。
移动手机的Facebook客户端。标准版是免费的基于浏览器的应用程序。应用程序使用内置的Andr??oid网页浏览器引擎优化小。这不是原来的客户端一样强大，但重量更轻，更快，更人性化。... 展开分享一个对Facebook看法的文章，不全赞同，但颇有见解
译文: 大家都别用Facebook
Facebook现在有5900万的用户，每周新增用户也有200万。但是你在上面绝不会看到Tom
Hodgkinson的真实信息——他现在已经看清了这个网站的操纵者们到底在玩什么把戏。
在这篇文章里，911后美国情报界对高科技创新的热情，和1999年In-Q-Tel风险投资公司的成立被错误地联系了起来，因为911发生在2001年，它不可能促成911之前两年In-Q-Tel公司的成立。
我鄙视Facebook。这家极其成功的美国企业标榜自己是“把你和你周围的人联系起来的社会化纽带”。但是等一下，我和我周围的人联系，有必要非得用电脑吗？我的社会关系，凭什么要让在加州的一群网络怪人来做中介？大家这都是怎么了？
那么，Facebook真的把人们联系起来了吗？与做那些让人愉快的事，比如和朋友们聊天、吃饭、跳舞、喝酒相比，通过Facebook，我只是在网络空间上发些语无伦次的日志和逗人乐的图片，却永远离不开我的桌子。我的一个朋友最近跟我说，周六他一个人在家，花了一晚上的时间，坐在他的桌子边上一边喝酒，一边上着Facebook。想想看，这是多么可悲的一幅画面。Facebook把我们捆在电脑旁边，这远不是什么“连接你我”，而是把我们和别人隔离开来。
Facebook还很受我们中间那些虚荣而又自我的人的欢迎。我要是发布一张把我自己照得很漂亮的照片，再写个我最喜欢的东西的清单，我就是树立了一个虚伪的自我形象，以期获得女孩们的青睐和认同。（我另一个朋友就说：“我喜欢Facebook，因为它让我钓到了个马子。”）Facebook还助长了朋友间的攀比：它让朋友的数量有多少看起来远比朋友的质量有多高要重要得多。似乎你的“朋友”越多，你这个人就越优秀。用美国高中里很流行的话讲，你就很“吃得开”。
丹尼斯出版社的Facebook杂志封面上的那句话，就说明了这一点：“怎么样才能让你的朋友翻倍”。
不过，似乎没有人站在我的立场这边。当Facebook声称他们已经有5900万活跃用户的时候，其中英国以700万成为继美国和加拿大之后，用户数量第三大的国家。那个时候，我就写文章说，这5900万人都是傻瓜，他们都无偿地把自己的身份信息和消费习惯，提供给了一家他们对其一无所知的美国公司。现在，每周还有200万新用户加入。以这样的速度，到明年的这个时候，Facebook就会有2亿活跃用户。而且我很肯定，这个速度在以后的几个月肯定还会越来越快。正如该公司的发言人克里斯　休斯所说：“Facebook让人难以抗拒。”
以上这些，都足以让我永远抵制Facebook。但原因还不止这些，可以说，还有很多。
Facebook有充足的经费，而且提供这些经费的人，即那些在硅谷的风险资本家们，早就想好了要把一种理念推向全球。Facebook就是这种理念的表现。就像它之前的PayPal一样，Facebook也是一次社会化试验，也是新保守主义自由意志论的一种新的表现形式。在Facebook上，你可以自由地做你想做的事，只要你不怕被世界上最大的品牌们狂轰滥炸。拿PayPal来说，国界已经成为了过去式。
尽管Facebook这个项目是由封面明星马克　扎克伯格构思的，但它背后的真正主人，是硅谷的风险投资人和未来派哲学家、40岁的彼得　希尔（PayPal的创始人，译者注）。执掌Facebook董事会的，只有三个人：希尔、扎克伯格和吉姆　布雷尔，来自风险投资公司Accel　Partners的第三位投资人（后来他持有了这家公司大部分的股份）。2004年，当三个哈佛学生（扎克伯格、克里斯　休斯和达斯汀　莫斯克威茨）到旧金山见希尔的时候，他投资了50万美元。据称，这些钱在Facebook成立之初，只让希尔占有了Facebook7%的股份，而现在，整个网站的市值已经有150亿美元了，他所占的股份现在就值十几亿。关于究竟到底谁是Facebook的合伙创始人，还有很多争议，但不管是谁，扎克伯格是唯一留在董事会的人，尽管休斯和莫斯克威茨也都还在公司工作。
希尔在硅谷乃至美国风险投资界，都被誉为自由意志主义的天才。他是虚拟银行系统PayPal的合伙创始人和CEO，后来他折价15亿美元把它卖给了Ebay，自己拿到了5500万美元。他还运作着一家叫Clarium
Capital Management、价值30亿英镑的套利基金公司，和一家名叫Founders
Fund的风险投资基金公司。《彭博市场》杂志最近把他称为“本国最成功的套利基金经理之一”。他靠在上涨的油价和最近看跌的美元上下赌来赚钱。他和他那些暴富的硅谷伙计们，最近被《财富》杂志评为“PayPal黑手党”，杂志记者还说，希尔有一个衣冠楚楚的管家和一辆价值50万美元的麦凯伦跑车。希尔同时还是一位急欲取胜的国际象棋大师，有一次在失利以后，他还一把将棋子都抹到了地上。但他从来不为自己的过度求胜心切而道歉，他说：“你要是能做一个有风度的败将，我就也能。”
但希尔还不只是一个聪明、贪婪的资本家。他还是一个未来派的哲学家和一个新保守主义者。他毕业于斯坦福大学的哲学系，1998年还与人合著一本书叫《多样性神话》，书中抨击了在斯坦福大学占主导地位的自由主义和文化多样性理念，宣称“文化多样性”会导致个性自由的弱化。当希尔还在斯坦福大学上学时，他就成立了一份右翼的报纸——现在仍在发行——《斯坦福评论》。它的格言是：Fiat Lux（要有光）。希尔还是TheVanguard.Org网站的成员，这个网站是一个网络新保守主义压力集团，它是专门建立起来对抗另一个网络自由主义压力集团MoveOn.org的。希尔自谓是一个“泛自由派路线者”。
TheVanguard的运行者，是希尔极其崇拜的一位哲学家兼资本家，罗德　D　马丁。在这个网上，希尔曾说：“罗德是我们国家少数几个能为民主政策献计的人之一。他比许多企业的领导者们都更了解美国。”
稍微到他们的网站上去看一下，你就可以明白他们的世界观：“TheVanguard.Org的成员，都推崇保守主义价值观、自由市场和受限制的政府，相信它们能给所有人，特别是那些贫穷者带来希望和机会。”他们的目标是推动政治来“重塑美国和这个世界”。TheVanguard把它的政治观描述为“里根主义/撒切尔主义”。该网站主席的简介里说：“今天，我们要给MoveOn（那个自由主义网站）、希拉里和那些左翼媒体们上一课，让他们印象深刻的一课。”
至此，希尔的政治观尽显无疑了，那么，他的哲学是什么呢？我听过一个Podcast，在里面希尔讲了他对未来的设想。简而言之，他的哲学是这样的：从17世纪以来，一些受到启发的思想家，开始慢慢抛弃老套的、以自然为约束的生命观。这里引用托马斯　霍比斯著名的对生命的定义：“恶心、野蛮、短暂”。他还向往一个人类征服了自然的世界——空想。希尔说，PayPal的设想就来源于他的信仰：价值不一定非要通过现实的产品才能实现，人和人的关系也能产生价值。通过PayPal，你可以在全球范围内不受限制地转移资金。《彭博市场》杂志是这么说的：“对希尔来说，PayPal只和自由有关：它能让人们回避现金，却又能在全球支配金钱。”
很明显，Facebook是又一次超资本主义试验：你能靠友谊赚钱吗？你能建立一个无国界的社区，然后向他们兜售可口可乐吗？Facebook其实压根就没什么创新，它所做的事情没有任何意义，它只是把过去以不同形式发生的人际关系简单地用一种媒介联系起来而已。
尔的哲学启蒙导师，是斯坦福大学的热内　吉拉德，他是一种叫做“模仿的欲望”的人类行为学的倡导者。吉拉德认为，人在本质上像羊一样，不经什么思考就会互
相模仿彼此。这个理论似乎在希尔的虚拟世界中得到了证实：人们想要的东西和自己根本不相干，他们只知道大家都在追捧它。就这样，经济泡沫出现了，就这样，
人们对Facebook趋之若鹜。每次希尔搞派对的时候，吉拉德都会被邀请。哦，还有，在希尔的哲学里，你看不到那些过气的但却是真实的概念，比如艺术、美、爱、喜悦和真实。
互联网对像希尔这样的新保守主义者们来说很有吸引力，因为网络上的人或者公司之间，存在着一种特定的自由，这种自由可以让你摆脱烦人的法律、国界之类的东西。网络打开了一个可以自由贸易，同时又无所约束的世界。与此同时，希尔似乎还不用缴纳离岸税，他还可以说，世界上40%的财富都集中在像瓦努阿图、开曼群岛、摩纳哥和巴巴多斯这样的国家。我想，说希尔像鲁珀特　默多克一样在逃税，应该不过分。他同样很欢迎数字文化的全球化，因为这让银行的人对他的经营无从指责，他说：“要是银行在瓦努阿图，就不会有工人闹着要接管银行这样的事发生。”
如果以前的生活是恶心、野蛮、短暂的，那么，将来希尔想让它变得长些、再长些，最后他还会投资开一家公司，专门研究长生不老之术。他已经给在剑桥的一位叫Aubrey de Grey的老年医学家赞助了3500万英镑，希望找到让人永生的钥匙。希尔还是一个叫“人工智能奇迹研究所”的机构的顾问团成员。在这个机构的网站上写着：“‘奇迹’是一种比人还聪明的东西，包括人工智能……人脑－电脑接口……基因工程……等多种科技，如果取得突破，将让它变得比人还聪明。”
所以，正如他自己承认的那样，希尔试图毁掉这个被他称为“自然”的现实世界，取而代之的将是一个虚拟的世界。在这样的大背景下，让我们再来看看Facebook。Facebook是一个蓄意操纵世界的试验，而希尔则是一个拥有技术乌托邦幻想的新保守主义幽灵。我可不想让这样一个人变得有钱。
Facebook董事会的第三位成员，是吉姆　布雷尔。他是风险投资公司Accel Partners的合伙人，在2005年4月投资1.27亿美元给Facebook。在像沃尔玛和奇迹娱乐这样的美国商业巨头的董事会里，吉姆也曾是国家风险资金联合会（NVCA）的主席。现在，正是这些人在掌握着美国，因为他们都把钱投给像扎克伯格这样的年轻天才身上。Facebook接到的最近一轮投资，主要来自于一家叫Greylock Venture
Capital的风险投资公司，总的投资额为2.75亿美元。这家公司的大股东之一叫霍华德　考克斯，他是又一位前NVCA主席，同时也是In-Q-Tel公司董事会成员。In-Q-Tel公司是哪个？不管你信不信（你可以到网上去查），这是中央情报局下属的一家风险投资公司。911之后，美国情报界对个人领域的创新科技带来的可能性感到十分激动，于是在1999年（这就是本文开始提到的时间错误，译者注），他们成立了他们自己的风险投资基金——In-Q-Tel，致力于“寻找和资助开发前沿科技的公司，并把这些技术应用在中情局以及美国情报界（IC），以帮助他们完成各自的使命”。
美国国防部和中情局衷爱技术的原因，是因为它让刺探情报变得更容易。2003年，国防部长堂纳德　拉姆斯菲尔德说：“我们需要寻找最新的方法来威吓我们的对手们，我们要做信息时代的领头羊，这对我们奠定转型的基础很关键。”In-Q-Tel公司的一把手叫基尔曼　路易，他和布雷尔都是NVCA的董事会成员。另一个In-Q-Tel团队的关键人物是安妮塔 K 琼斯，她原来是美国国防部防卫研究和工程部门的头儿，还和布雷尔一起在BBN Technologies公司董事会共事过。她离开国防部的时候，参议员查克
罗伯这样评价她：“她把科技和军事事务结合在了一起，设计出了让美国在下个世纪的战场上独领风骚的详尽计划。”
到现在，就算你不同意Facebook在某种程度上，通过大规模的信息收集工具，辅助了美国的帝国主义计划，你也不能否认，作为一家企业，它不是一个纯粹的超级天才式企业。一些老网虫说，Facebook150亿美元的估价太高了，但我想说，要说这个估价有问题，只能说它还是太低了。它的规模大得让人发晕，而它发展的潜力基本上是无限的。“我们要让每个人都用上Facebook，”Facebook上一位叫“大哥”的匿名用户这样说。我敢打赌，这个目标一定会实现的。正是
Facebook巨大的发展潜力，让微软都花2.4亿美元买了它1.6%的股份。最近还有传言说，财富排名全球第九的亚洲投资者李嘉诚，已经花了6000万美元购买了Facebook0.4%的股份。
这个网站的创造者们除了随便对程序做点儿小修改以外，就不用再做其它的事情。基本上，他们只要坐下来，看着数以百万计的Facebook的粉丝们自愿地把自己的身份信息、照片和他们最喜欢的消费新产品清单上传就OK了。一旦有了这个庞大的个人数据库，Facebook就可以把这些信息卖给广告商们，或者就像扎克伯格在博客文章里写的那样，“帮助人们和朋友们共享他们在网上的活动信息”。实际上，这就是现在正在发生着的事情。去年的11月6日，Facebook宣布12家国际品牌入主其董事会。其中就包括可口可乐、百事达（美国最大视频租赁商）、Verizon（美国最大的本地电话公司）、索尼电影公司和康泰纳仕出版集团。这些都是各自领域的大哥大型企业，他们的追随者们发表了如下的评论：
“在Facebook上有了广告，我们的品牌就能成为Facebook上的人们交流的话题了。”可口可乐公司全球互动营销部的副总裁卡罗尔　克鲁斯说。
“这能让Facebook上成千上万的用户和百事达进行便捷、恰当、愉快的交流，我们把它看作培养用户的一种新方式。”百事达公司的董事局主席、CEO吉姆　科耶斯说。“这种方式比用广告来加深大家对品牌的印象要好得多。它还能让百事
达和用户群进行直接交流，反过来，这样也能推动用户向他们的朋友们分享使用我们的服务带来的好处。”
在Facebook上，做广告不叫“做广告”，叫“分享”。在Facebook上注册账户以后，你就成了百事达或者可口可乐的移动广告，向你的朋友们兜售这些品牌的理念。实际上，这就相当于把友情商品化了，或者说从友情中获取资本的价值。
现在，就拿报纸和Facebook相比，前者已经可以被看成是一种没有前途的、过时了的商业模式了。报纸向想卖东西给他们的读者的企业出售广告版面，但是这个体系和Facebook相比，有两点不足：一是报纸为了提供信息，得付钱给那些记者们。而Facebook却能免费得到信息；二是Facebook做广告的针对性远比报纸高得多得多。如果你在Facebook上说，你最喜欢的电影是《摇滚万万岁This Is Spinal
Tap》，那么当这部电影的续集出来的时候，你肯定会收到关于它的广告。
Facebook创始人之一：马克　扎克伯格 (供图: Paul
Sakuma/美联社)
Facebook最近确实是在推行它的“灯塔广告计划”。用户会被告知，他的一个朋友在某个在线商店里进行了消费。4.6万名用户认为这种方式侵犯了他们的权利，还联名签署了一份请愿书，呼吁“Facebook！停止侵犯我的隐私！”。扎克伯格在他的公司博客上对此表示了歉意。他写道说，他们现在已经更改了系统，把“是否对别人可见”的选项改成了“是否对别人开放”。但我怀疑，这种认为自己被粗暴地商业化的对抗，不久之后就会被人们遗忘：毕竟在19世纪中期时，直到民权解放运动席卷全国的时候，英国才规范了警察的权力。
再说了，那些Facebook的用户们真的阅读过网站的隐私条款吗？它上面说可没有说你有这么多的隐私权。Facebook把自己装作是一块自由之地，但看看掌握
它的人，你敢说Facebook不是一个徒有其表、内部却不比英国当时的政府好多少的虚幻的极权体制吗？希尔之流已经建立了一个他们自己的“国家”，一个消费者的“国家”。
现在，你可能也像希尔这样的网络大佬一样，发现这个社会化的试验很刺激。这里是一块人们渴望已久的启蒙之地，就像17世纪踏上北美的清教徒们发现的新大陆一样。这里人们可以根据谁在看着，来自由地表现自己。国界已经成为了过去，每个人都可以在虚幻的空间里嬉闹，自然已经被人们无限的想象力征服。是的，你可能决定把钱都给天才的发明家希尔，然后就是无尽的等待，等着不可阻挡的Facebook公开发行股票。
又或者，你可能想了想，觉得自己不是很想成为这个广泛集资计划中的一员，也不想建立什么无聊的虚拟共和国，把自己的人际关系和朋友们变成卖给商业巨头们的产品。所以最后你拒绝这个“收购世界的计划”。
从我自己的角度来讲，我正要退出这一切，能多自由就多自由，把不上Facebook省下来的时间用来做些有意义的事，比如读几本书。我还没有读过济慈的《恩底弥翁》，还没有给我的后院播种，干嘛非去要上Facebook?我可不想脱离大自然，
我要重新投入其中，空调真是太讨厌了！而且，要是我想和我周围的人联系的话，我会选择老一点的手段。有一种免费而且给你带来独特体验的信息分享方式，那就是：聊天。
Facebook的隐私策略
'Facebook'
开个小玩笑，当你看见“Facebook”这个词的时候，试着把它看成“老大”。
１。我们会向您投放广告
当您使用Facebook时，你可以建立您的个人名片、建立您的个人网络、发送消息、使用搜索和提问、建立群组、发起活动、添加程序，以及通过多种方式传递信息。我们会收集这些信息，以便我们为您提供服务和个性化的特性。
２。你可以删除任何东西
当您更新信息时，我们会在一段时间内，备份该信息先前的版本以便恢复。
３。任何人都可以察看您的私密信息
我们不能、也不会保证您发布的用户信息不会被未经授权的人察看。我们对本网站的任何隐私设置的规避或者安全措施不负任何责任。我们认为您理解并认可即使在删除之后，用户内容的备份仍然可以在缓存和存档页面中看到，如果其他用户事先拷贝或存储了您的内容，它们也可以被看到。
４。我们关于您的市场推广信息是完全保密的
Facebook可能会从其他地方，比如报纸、博客、即时通讯服务和其他Facebook用户使用的服务处（比如相片Tag），搜集关于您的信息，以便为您提供更加有用的信息，带给您更加个性化的用户体验。
５。“是否对别人可见”不是绝对的
即使您选择了屏蔽所有电邮通知，Facebook仍然保留给您的账户发送通知的权利。
６。中央情报局可以在认为应该的情况下察看您的信息
您在使用Facebook时，
相当于默认把您的个人数据传送到美国进行处理……根据法律或相关适用条款（比如传票或者法院命令），我们可能会被要求披露用户信息。在披露之前，我们会确
认法院或者诉讼当事人察看信息的要求是合乎适当法律的。另外，当以下行为符合法律条款时，我们可能会共享用户账户或者其它信息：维护网站的利益或者所有
权；防止对Facebook服务的抄袭、冒用Facebook名称及其它违法行为；防止即将发生的身体伤害。共享的对象可能包括公司、律师、情报人员或者政府机构。
&Facebook has 59 million users - and 2
million new ones join each week. But you won't catch Tom Hodgkinson
volunteering his personal information - not now that he knows the
politics of the people behind the social networking site
The US intelligence community's enthusiasm for hi-tech
innovation after 9/11 and the creation of In-Q-Tel, its venture
capital fund, in 1999 were anachronistically linked in the article
below. Since 9/11 happened in 2001 it could not have led to the
setting up of In-Q-Tel two years earlier.
despise Facebook. This enormously successful American business
describes itself as "a social utility that connects you with the
people around you". But hang on. Why on God's earth would I need a
computer to connect with the people around me? Why should my
relationships be mediated through the imagination of a bunch of
supergeeks in California? What was wrong with the pub?
And does Facebook really connect people? Doesn't it rather
disconnect us, since instead of doing something enjoyable such as
talking and eating and dancing and drinking with my friends, I am
merely sending them little ungrammatical notes and amusing photos
in cyberspace, while chained to my desk? A friend of mine recently
told me that he had spent a Saturday night at home alone on
Facebook, drinking at his desk. What a gloomy image. Far from
connecting us, Facebook actually isolates us at our
workstations.
Facebook appeals to a kind of vanity and self-importance in
us, too. If I put up a flattering picture of myself with a list of
my favourite things, I can construct an artificial representation
of who I am in order to get sex or approval. ("I like Facebook,"
said another friend. "I got a shag out of it.") It also encourages
a disturbing competitivness around friendship: it seems that with
friends today, quality counts for nothing and quantity is king. The
more friends you have, the better you are. You are "popular", in
the sense much loved in American high schools. Witness the cover
line on Dennis Publishing's new Facebook magazine: "How To Double
Your Friends List."
It seems, though, that I am very much alone in my hostility.
At the time of writing Facebook claims 59 million active users,
including 7 million in the UK, Facebook's third-biggest customer
after the US and Canada. That's 59 million suckers, all of whom
have volunteered their ID card information and consumer preferences
to an American business they know nothing about. Right now, 2
million new people join each week. At the present rate of growth,
Facebook will have more than 200 million active users by this time
next year. And I would predict that, if anything, its rate of
growth will accelerate over the coming months. As its spokesman
Chris Hughes says: "It's embedded itself to an extent where it's
hard to get rid of."
All of the above would have been enough to make me reject
Facebook for ever. But there are more reasons to hate it. Many
Facebook is a well-funded project, and the people behind the
funding, a group of Silicon Valley venture capitalists, have a
clearly thought out ideology that they are hoping to spread around
the world. Facebook is one manifestation of this ideology. Like
PayPal before it, it is a social experiment, an expression of a
particular kind of neoconservative libertarianism. On Facebook, you
can be free to be who you want to be, as long as you don't mind
being bombarded by adverts for the world's biggest brands. As with
PayPal, national boundaries are a thing of the past.
Although the project was initially conceived by media cover
star Mark Zuckerberg, the real face behind Facebook is the
40-year-old Silicon Valley venture capitalist and futurist
philosopher Peter Thiel. There are only three board members on
Facebook, and they are Thiel, Zuckerberg and a third investor
called Jim Breyer from a venture capital firm called Accel Partners
(more on him later). Thiel invested $500,000 in Facebook when
Harvard students Zuckerberg, Chris Hughes and Dustin Moskowitz went
to meet him in San Francisco in June 2004, soon after they had
launched the site. Thiel now reportedly owns 7% of Facebook, which,
at Facebook's current valuation of $15bn, would be worth more than
$1bn. There is much debate on who exactly were the original
co-founders of Facebook, but whoever they were, Zuckerberg is the
only one left on the board, although Hughes and Moskowitz still
work for the company.
Thiel is widely regarded in Silicon Valley and in the US
venture capital scene as a libertarian genius. He is the co-founder
and CEO of the virtual banking system PayPal, which he sold to Ebay
for $1.5bn, taking $55m for himself. He also runs a &3bn hedge fund
called Clarium Capital Management and a venture capital fund called
Founders Fund. Bloomberg Markets magazine recently called him "one
of the most successful hedge fund managers in the country". He has
made money by betting on rising oil prices and by correctly
predicting that the dollar would weaken. He and his absurdly
wealthy Silicon Valley mates have recently been labelled "The
PayPal Mafia" by Fortune magazine, whose reporter also observed
that Thiel has a uniformed butler and a $500,000 McLaren supercar.
Thiel is also a chess master and intensely competitive. He has been
known to sweep the chessmen off the table in a fury when losing.
And he does not apologise for this hyper-competitveness, saying:
"Show me a good loser and I'll show you a loser."
But Thiel is more than just a clever and avaricious capitalist. He
is a futurist philosopher and neocon activist. A philosophy
graduate from Stanford, in 1998 he co-wrote a book called The
Diversity Myth, which is a detailed attack on liberalism and the
multiculturalist ideology that dominated Stanford. He claimed that
the "multiculture" led to a lessening of individual freedoms. While
a student at Stanford, Thiel founded a rightwing journal, still up
and running, called The Stanford Review - motto: Fiat Lux ("Let
there be light"). Thiel is a member of TheVanguard.Org, an
internet-based neoconservative pressure group that was set up to
attack MoveOn.org, a liberal pressure group that works on the web.
Thiel calls himself "way libertarian".
TheVanguard is run by one Rod D Martin, a
philosopher-capitalist whom Thiel greatly admires. On the site,
Thiel says: "Rod is one of our nation's leading minds in the
creation of new and needed ideas for public policy. He possesses a
more complete understanding of America than most executives have of
their own businesses."
This little taster from their website will give you an idea of
their vision for the world: "TheVanguard.Org is an online community
of Americans who believe in conservative values, the free market
and limited government as the best means to bring hope and
ever-increasing opportunity to everyone, especially the poorest
among us." Their aim is to promote policies that will "reshape
America and the globe". TheVanguard describes its politics as
"Reaganite/Thatcherite". The chairman's message says: "Today we'll
teach MoveOn [the liberal website], Hillary and the leftwing media
some lessons they never imagined."
So, Thiel's politics are not in doubt. What about his
philosophy? I listened to a podcast of an address Thiel gave about
his ideas for the future. His philosophy, briefly, is this: since
the 17th century, certain enlightened thinkers have been taking the
world away from the old-fashioned nature-bound life, and here he
quotes Thomas Hobbes' famous characterisation of life as "nasty,
brutish and short", and towards a new virtual world where we have
conquered nature. Value now exists in imaginary things. Thiel says
that PayPal was motivated by this belief: that you can find value
not in real manufactured objects, but in the relations between
human beings. PayPal was a way of moving money around the world
with no restriction. Bloomberg Markets puts it like this: "For
Thiel, PayPal was all about freedom: it would enable people to
skirt currency controls and move money around the
Clearly, Facebook is another uber-capitalist experiment: can
you make money out of friendship? Can you create communities free
of national boundaries - and then sell Coca-Cola to them? Facebook
is profoundly uncreative. It makes nothing at all. It simply
mediates in relationships that were happening anyway.
Thiel's philosophical mentor is one Ren& Girard of Stanford
University, proponent of a theory of human behaviour called mimetic
desire. Girard reckons that people are essentially sheep-like and
will copy one another without much reflection. The theory would
also seem to be proved correct in the case of Thiel's virtual
worlds: the desired
all you need to know is
that human beings will tend to move in flocks. Hence financial
bubbles. Hence the enormous popularity of Facebook. Girard is a
regular at Thiel's intellectual soirees. What you don't hear about
in Thiel's philosophy, by the way, are old-fashioned real-world
concepts such as art, beauty, love, pleasure and
The internet is immensely appealing to neocons such as Thiel
because it promises a certain sort of freedom in human relations
and in business, freedom from pesky national laws, national
boundaries and suchlike. The internet opens up a world of free
trade and laissez-faire expansion. Thiel also seems to approve of
offshore tax havens, and claims that 40% of the world's wealth
resides in places such as Vanuatu, the Cayman Islands, Monaco and
Barbados. I think it's fair to say that Thiel, like Rupert Murdoch,
is against tax. He also likes the globalisation of digital culture
because it makes the banking overlords hard to attack: "You can't
have a workers' revolution to take over a bank if the bank is in
Vanuatu," he says.
If life in the past was nasty, brutish and short, then in the
future Thiel wants to make it much longer, and to this end he has
also invested in a firm that is exploring life-extension
technologies. He has pledged &3.5m to a Cambridge-based
gerontologist called Aubrey de Grey, who is searching for the key
to immortality. Thiel is also on the board of advisers of something
called the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence. From
its fantastical website, the following: "The Singularity is the
technological creation of smarter-than-human intelligence. There
are several technologies ... heading in this direction ...
Artificial Intelligence ... direct brain-computer interfaces ...
genetic engineering ... different technologies which, if they
reached a threshold level of sophistication, would enable the
creation of smarter-than-human intelligence."
So by his own admission, Thiel is trying to destroy the real
world, which he also calls "nature", and install a virtual world in
its place, and it is in this context that we must view the rise of
Facebook. Facebook is a deliberate experiment in global
manipulation, and Thiel is a bright young thing in the
neoconservative pantheon, with a penchant for far-out
techno-utopian fantasies. Not someone I want to help get any
The third board member of Facebook is Jim Breyer. He is a
partner in the venture capital firm Accel Partners, who put $12.7m
into Facebook in April 2005. On the board of such US giants as
Wal-Mart and Marvel Entertainment, he is also a former chairman of
the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA). Now these are the
people who are really making things happen in America, because they
invest in the new young talent, the Zuckerbergs and the like.
Facebook's most recent round of funding was led by a company called
Greylock Venture Capital, who put in the sum of $27.5m. One of
Greylock's senior partners is called Howard Cox, another former
chairman of the NVCA, who is also on the board of In-Q-Tel. What's
In-Q-Tel? Well, believe it or not (and check out their website),
this is the venture-capital wing of the CIA. After 9/11, the US
intelligence community became so excited by the possibilities of
new technology and the innovations being made in the private
sector, that in 1999 they set up their own venture capital fund,
In-Q-Tel, which "identifies and partners with companies developing
cutting-edge technologies to help deliver these solutions to the
Central Intelligence Agency and the broader US Intelligence
Community (IC) to further their missions".
The US defence department and the CIA love technology because
it makes spying easier. "We need to find new ways to deter new
adversaries," defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld said in 2003. "We
need to make the leap into the information age, which is the
critical foundation of our transformation efforts." In-Q-Tel's
first chairman was Gilman Louie, who served on the board of the
NVCA with Breyer. Another key figure in the In-Q-Tel team is Anita
K Jones, former director of defence research and engineering for
the US department of defence, and - with Breyer - board member of
BBN Technologies. When she left the US department of defence,
Senator Chuck Robb paid her the following tribute: "She brought the
technology and operational military communities together to design
detailed plans to sustain US dominance on the battlefield into the
next century."
even if you don't buy the idea that Facebook is some kind of
extension of the American imperialist programme crossed with a
massive information-gathering tool, there is no way of denying that
as a business, it is pure mega-genius. Some net nerds have suggsted
that its $15bn valuation is excessive, but I would argue that if
anything that is too modest. Its scale really is dizzying, and the
potential for growth is virtually limitless. "We want everyone to
be able to use Facebook," says the impersonal voice of Big Brother
on the website. I'll bet they do. It is Facebook's enormous
potential that led Microsoft to buy 1.6% for $240m. A recent rumour
says that Asian investor Lee Ka-Shing, said to be the ninth richest
man in the world, has bought 0.4% of Facebook for $60m.
The creators of the site need do very little bar fiddle with
the programme. In the main, they simply sit back and watch as
millions of Facebook addicts voluntarily upload their ID details,
photographs and lists of their favourite consumer objects. Once in
receipt of this vast database of human beings, Facebook then simply
has to sell the information back to advertisers, or, as Zuckerberg
puts it in a recent blog post, "to try to help people share
information with their friends about things they do on the web".
And indeed, this is precisely what's happening. On November 6 last
year, Facebook announced that 12 global brands had climbed on
board. They included Coca-Cola, Blockbuster, Verizon, Sony Pictures
and Cond& Nast. All trained in marketing bullshit of the highest
order, their representatives made excited comments along the
following lines:
"With Facebook Ads, our brands can become a part of the way
users communicate and interact on Facebook," said Carol Kruse, vice
president, global interactive marketing, the Coca-Cola
"We view this as an innovative way to cultivate relationships
with millions of Facebook users by enabling them to interact with
Blockbuster in convenient, relevant and entertaining ways," said
Jim Keyes, Blockbuster chairman and CEO. "This is beyond creating
advertising impressions. This is about Blockbuster participating in
the community of the consumer so that, in return, consumers feel
motivated to share the benefits of our brand with their
"Share" is Facebookspeak for "advertise". Sign up to Facebook
and you become a free walking, talking advert for Blockbuster or
Coke, extolling the virtues of these brands to your friends. We are
seeing the commodification of human relationships, the extraction
of capitalistic value from friendships.
Now, by comparision with Facebook, newspapers, for example,
begin to look hopelessly outdated as a business model. A newspaper
sells advertising space to businesses looking to sell stuff to
their readers. But the system is far less sophisticated than
Facebook for two reasons. One is that newspapers have to put up
with the irksome expense of paying journalists to provide the
content. Facebook gets its content for free. The other is that
Facebook can target advertising with far greater precision than a
newspaper. Admit on Facebook that your favourite film is This Is
Spinal Tap, and when a Spinal Tap-esque movie comes out, you can be
sure that they'll be sending ads your way.
true that Facebook recently got into hot water with its Beacon
advertising programme. Users were notified that one of their
friends had made a purchase at
46,000 users
felt that this level of advertising was intrusive, and signed a
petition called "Facebook! Stop invading my privacy!" to say so.
Zuckerberg apologised on his company blog. He has written that they
have now changed the system from "opt-out" to "opt-in". But I
suspect that this little rebellion about being so ruthlessly
commodified will soon be forgotten: after all, there was a national
outcry by the civil liberties movement when the idea of a police
force was mooted in the UK in the mid 19th century.
Futhermore, have you Facebook users ever actually read the
privacy policy? It tells you that you don't have much privacy.
Facebook pretends to be about freedom, but isn't it really more
like an ideologically motivated virtual totalitarian regime with a
population that will very soon exceed the UK's? Thiel and the rest
have created their own country, a country of consumers.
Now, you may, like Thiel and the other new masters of the
cyberverse, find this social experiment tremendously exciting. Here
at last is the Enlightenment state longed for since the Puritans of
the 17th century sailed away to North America, a world where
everyone is free to express themselves as they please, according to
who is watching. National boundaries are a thing of the past and
everyone cavorts together in freewheeling virtual space. Nature has
been conquered through man's boundless ingenuity. Yes, and you may
decide to send genius investor Thiel all your money, and certainly
you'll be waiting impatiently for the public flotation of the
unstoppable Facebook.
Or you might reflect that you don't really want to be part of
this heavily-funded programme to create an arid global virtual
republic, where your own self and your relationships with your
friends are converted into commodites on sale to giant global
brands. You may decide that you don't want to be part of this
takeover bid for the world.
For my own part, I am going to retreat from the whole thing,
remain as unplugged as possible, and spend the time I save by not
going on Facebook doing something useful, such as reading books.
Why would I want to waste my time on Facebook when I still haven't
read Keats' Endymion? And when there are seeds to be sown in my own
back yard? I don't want to retreat from nature, I want to reconnect
with it. Damn air-conditioning! And if I want to connect with the
people around me, I will revert to an old piece of technology. It's
free, it's easy and it delivers a uniquely individual experience in
sharing information: it's called talking.
Facebook's privacy policy
Just for fun, try substituting the words 'Big Brother'
whenever you read the word 'Facebook'
1 We will advertise at you
"When you use Facebook, you may set up your personal profile,
form relationships, send messages, perform searches and queries,
form groups, set up events, add applications, and transmit
information through various channels. We collect this information
so that we can provide you the service and offer personalised
features."
2 You can't delete anything
"When you update information, we usually keep a backup copy of
the prior version for a reasonable period of time to enable
reversion to the prior version of that information."
3 Anyone can glance at your intimate
confessions
"... we cannot and do not guarantee that user content you post
on the site will not be viewed by unauthorized persons. We are not
responsible for circumvention of any privacy settings or security
measures contained on the site. You understand and acknowledge
that, even after removal, copies of user content may remain
viewable in cached and archived pages or if other users have copied
or stored your user content."
4 Our marketing profile of you will be
unbeatable
"Facebook may also collect information about you from other
sources, such as newspapers, blogs, instant messaging services, and
other users of the Facebook service through the operation of the
service (eg, photo tags) in order to provide you with more useful
information and a more personalised experience."
5 Opting out doesn't mean opting
"Facebook reserves the right to send you notices about your
account even if you opt out of all voluntary email
notifications."
6 The CIA may look at the stuff when they feel like
"By using Facebook, you are consenting to have your personal
data transferred to and processed in the United States ... We may
be required to disclose user information pursuant to lawful
requests, such as subpoenas or court orders, or in compliance with
applicable laws. We do not reveal information until we have a good
faith belief that an information request by law enforcement or
private litigants meets applicable legal standards. Additionally,
we may share account or other information when we believe it is
necessary to comply with law, to protect our interests or property,
to prevent fraud or other illegal activity perpetrated through the
Facebook service or using the Facebook name, or to prevent imminent
bodily harm. This may include sharing information with other
companies, lawyers, agents or government agencies."
已投稿到：
以上网友发言只代表其个人观点，不代表新浪网的观点或立场。