My PICPMB Blog To App, or not to App? For MyCalendar, no longer a question! Blog 013 - 6 June 2012

Am I surrendering, or I have I actually lost? I do not suppose I will ever know. The fact of the matter is that, despite this second and serious effort to create entries in MyCalendar for those "facebook friends"whose birth dates I would like to remember, I am am giving up. Either I am not smart enough to use MyCalendar, or the application is as obtuse as it appears to be, at least to me.

It is possible that I may have unknowingly irritated some of my "facebook friends", during the time that I was trying to accomplish the task. For this, I apologize unreservedly. I will now appeal to my better half for help, as she has a birthday book. If that does not complete the task, I will appeal to Heather, as she has always been good at remembering telephone numbers, car license plate numbers, and probably birth dates.

Before letting go of MyCalendar, I need to say that in general, I continue to be irritated by facebook Apps. My most recent irritation was being faced with having to sign up for an App, simply to watch a video that a facebook friend had previously watched. Perhaps I am being somewhat irrational in this regard. Surely these Apps are designed to fit into the facebook experience in an intuitive and seamless manner, and if that is the case, then using them simply enhances the facebook experience.

I have to say that that has not been my experience. The facebook Apps that I have used, seem to be "hell bent" on optimizing their own agenda, rather than seamlessly enhancing the facebook experience. Furthermore, it inevitably annoys me that one has to agree to allowing an App that one signs up with, to monitor one's facebook behaviour, and use whatever would suit its own purposes.

So, will facebook continue to be a successful major force on the social computing landscape? I suspect not, and also believe that it will be the Apps that will ultimately decide that.

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Robert Dempster

www.robdempster.com