Monday, August 20, 2007

How Facebook will kidnap your children & demand a $3 trillion ransom*

Ah, mX wanders back into E2.0 territory yet again. And the results aren't pretty.

Surfcontrol make internet filtering software. So when they say that the internet is evil, we should believe them. And their research says that Facebook will cost Australian businesses $5 billion (link to SMH article). Using their rigorous scientific methodology, I can predict that coffee will cost Australian businesses $20 billion. Seriously, if 3.2 million Australian workers (say 4 from each of the 800,000 workplaces in Australia) spend approximately one hour a day drinking coffee with each other (about the same time the Facebook obsessives are on there, degrading themselves) then that means that coffee is four times as damaging to the Australian economy as Facebook.

Ban coffee now!!! As Dr Richard Cullen says, "It's only a matter of time before a security loophole is discovered and exploited." That soy decaff latte could be the last thing you ever drink!!!

Now the report has several anonymous interviewees who have apparently slacked off using Facebook and similar tools. I have no doubt that this goes on. But this kinda misses the point. If your employees will goof off at the drop of a hat, what does this say about the morons that hired them and are supposed to be managing them? N.B. I don't have a problem with workplaces monitoring the internet usage of their employees generally. Just so long as the policy on what is permissible is widely accepted and doesn't stop people from doing their jobs - which may legitimately involve networking with people outside the organisation.

Hat tips: Ross & Stephen C

*Based on extrapolations from the author's imagination.

UPDATE: Damn, Stephen L got in with the coffee gag first. That man is too hot to handle...

And Laurel's anti-MSM rant is pretty good. MSM's main selling point is supposed to be its objectivity and fact-based approach to news gathering - and yet it seems it will print any old rubbish on a slow day.

Well at least Surfcontrol got some cheap publicity, that's the important thing, eh?

1 comment:

Stephen Collins said...

Matt, thanks for the link. Ross' follow-up is good too - noting the AFR story (which underwhelmed me) and the storm of blog posts including mine.