Are Facebook Games Tests and Surveys The New Spam?

Recently, I joined Facebook.  I’m obviously a late comer to that particular site, and frankly I really don’t care.  There was a time when I would have been very interested, but I wasn’t in college then and, at the time, Facebook required you to be a student to join.

Since then, the rules have been loosened, and I joined mostly to satisfy a particular client who, as far as I can tell, wanted to have a couple more people he knew out on Facebook.  At the end of the day, it is probably a good thing for both me and my various business ventures to have a presence on the social media scene like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, if for no other reason than to keep someone else from usurping my good name first.  There would be no benefit in doing so today, but who knows, I could be big.

Ironically, it has been worthless from a business standpoint, although I haven’t put any effort into it that way, but still very fun.

It turns out that many of my old high school friends are also on Facebook (many of them newcomers as well) and also many of my extended family members, including one who lives in Japan.  So, hanging out and getting updates from friends and family has been a welcome treat.

Social Spam

Like most new Facebookers, I started out taking tests and surveys that I found or were passed on to me.  I even sent flair to a cousin of mine.  Most recently I’ve started playing Mafia Wars after my sister’s wall said that she needed help robbing the police impound lot.

I’ve come to realize all of these things are nothing more that socially engineered chain-mail spam.  After taking a test to tell you which insect you are, the test will, oh so helpfully, pop up with a list of your friends that you should “invite” to take the test too.  So, you click some names and pass it on, and they pass it on, and…chain email masquerading as social networking.

Even worse, are the games, like Mafia Wars.  I joined my sister’s mafia, and she joined mine.  But, apparently that isn’t enough.  In order to do certain jobs or fight certain bad guys, I have to have more mafia members.  How do I get more mafia members, by sending “invites” to my friends.  In fact, the game helps me out by saying that to have a powerful mafia I should check my list of Facebook friends and send invites to some of them “every day”.  Whatever.

So, I am putting out a call to see if there is a resource to find good, spam free, Facebook games that I can play so that I don’t get interested in a game that cannot be won, or played well, until I harangue fifty of my friends into joining as well.  Otherwise, I’ll have to startup that website too, and I’m already starting to think that maybe I have too many.

Oh, and don’t even get me started on the “offers” that give you points inside the game.  How big of a loser do you have to be to go to some website and sign up for something in order to get 42 lucky charms or whatever.  Pu-lease.

*

*