More Facebook Home Ads

Josh Elman, writing on Medium:

Facebook is celebrating all the wrong things. It advocates tuning out the people around you to see what else is happening that must be more interesting elsewhere. It foments FOMO. And it makes Facebook Home look like the best possible way to be the least present.

What I find interesting is that the “people first” interface of Facebook Home follows a trail blazed by Microsoft with Windows Phone. But Facebook’s ads promoting Home are 180 degrees apart from Microsoft’s for Windows Phone. Microsoft’s ads promoted the idea that with Windows Phone, you would — and should — spend less time looking at your phone. (My comments here.) Facebook’s ads take the opposite approach, and flat-out encourage you to tune out of your surroundings — at home, at work, everywhere — and pay attention only to what’s going on in Facebook on your phone.

★ Friday, 19 April 2013