This latest mind-boggling Facebook rumor comes to us by way of Brady Brim-DeForest, and claims that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has made an unsolicited offer for Facebook. It's an offer that would seem completely out of left field unless you stopped to think about the amount of relationship stored in the Facebook database, including family relationships. That type of data might appeal to the religious organization, which has an enormous genealogical database of its own.
Even if the church does have the cash on hand to make a reasonable offer, there are other companies out there that would make more sense, including the popular Web 2.0 site Geni, a combination social network and genealogy tool. Brim-DeForest double-checked with his sources, however, and updated his post:
"My inquiry a couple of hours ago to an old college friend who works for one of the interested parties has indicated that there is more at play here than meets the eye, and definitely more than just a kernel of truth to this rumor."
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I don't have insight there, but I don't see this as a valid rumor. That's a wild, wild, rumor. It is amusing how the church is part of rumors so frequently though, given how open they are. It seems people's lack of understanding makes it appear more mysterious.
Agreed. This rumor just doesn't make sense
There's just no way this would happen. Funny rumor, though. I'm going to start one about Facebook being run by the CIA.
Oh wait.
Here's a Mormon take on the rumor with an LDS public affairs person sounding in.
Completely and flatly false. Church Public Affairs:
"This rumor has no foundation whatsoever.
Lyman Kirkland
Church Public Affairs"
This is probably not true, but the church has a history of buying cutting edge technologies and running them as separate, for-profit businesses. First publishing, then broadcast properties etc. They run them separately and generally do not get involved in programming. Church owned television stations have and do run steamy soap operas, Geraldo Rivera, Opera etc.
This rumor seems pretty silly to me. However, it is true that the Family and Church History Department of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is very much involved in the development of advanced web-based applications.
I once did a back-of-the-envelope calculation that showed that when FamilySearch.org completes its goal of digitizing and indexing most of its more than 2.5 million rolls of family-history related microfilms and puts it all on line, it will require a server farm more capable than that of Google. I'm too lazy to repeat the calculation here, so you can just take that for a wild guess.
You can volunteer to help with the indexing project at indexing.familysearch.org, and you can see some of the fruits of this project at pilot.familysearch.org/.
The "new FamilySearch," an ambitious upgrade to the popular FamilySearch.org, is an entirely Internet-based family tree that operates in wiki-like fashion to enable millions of people to simultaneously work with a common family history database. The database now contains more than 500 million records. It is currently being rolled out in stages to members of the Church only, so as to work out the bugs and to learn what features are most needed, but hopes are eventually to open it to the public. FamilySearch has already provided application interfaces (APIs) for the new FamilySearch to qualified "web search affiliates" to enable them to develop their own commercial applications that will permit transparent interaction of personal family history databases with the new FamilySearch.
A glance at some of the more experimental FamilySearch explorations can be found at http://labs.familysearch.org/.
Although the Genealogy Society of Utah has worked intensively for many years to help to preserve the vital records of the world by microfilming (and now by direct digital photography), there are millions of people now living on earth who will have no permanent record made that they ever existed. No doubt the Church is thinking about ways it can address this deficiency.
I could imagine that in addition to its mission to preserve vital records, the Church will someday provide volunteers to record the names and relationships of those whose governments neglect their vital records. Although FamilySearch.org and the new FamilySearch are concerned primarily with the records of the dead, it is interesting to speculate on how we could best enable the living to record their vital information and family relationships for future generations. Obviously, however, some means of guaranteeing the privacy rights of the living would be essential. I can't imagine how the Facebook model could serve any such purpose.
hthalljr'gmail'com
I have long wondered when the LDS Church would have its own "Facebook" type site. LDS Living magazine has a facebook account with lots of friends. But LDS Living also has an email magazine database of more than 600,000 subscribers. Why dont they start a facebook for 'mormons' service? I think LDS Living is owned by Deseret Book which is owned by the Church.
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