I was talking with a student today and he was telling me how much FaceBook blew it with the new set of services they introduced a couple of days ago. I had actually logged into the FB just the other day and was sort of shocked to see the new feed feature running on my profile page. What was both interesting and a bit disconcerting was that I was able to see a whole bunch of information about all my friends and that my friends were able to see a whole bunch information about me. I thought, “I’m nit sure I want everyone to know that I just updated my music profile …” At that same time it was nice to see that one of my friends had gone from single to engaged for example.
When I listened to this student talk about how pissed everyone was I thought about a bunch of people sitting in a room making decisions for their audience … I’ve been in rooms like that, a group of people deciding on features we were convinced were the best thing to do only to find out the hard way we were wrong. I have been thinking about doing a real review of what has gone wrong with the FB’s latest moves but when I read Fred Stutzman’s post on his excellent blog Unit Structures this evening I just thought I’d point to the expert.
Oh so true! I’m definitely boycotting facebook. It’s ridiculous. They are going to lose so much from this. Not a smart move to make when there are so many other social networking sites ready to pick up the slack.
I’m not sure they frakked up. All of the info they aggregated was previously avallable, you just had to click around to get it. None of this information was private or secure in the first place.
If Facebook didn’t do it, I imagine it was only a matter of time before a third party did.
When I put anything online, I just assume that at some future date, SkyNet will be able to assemble it into a living representation of myself, where it’s possible to see connections and trends.
D, it is a good point. I think what people are upset about is how the FB changed the rules without asking first. It is easy to argue that it is up them to do that, but I have to say that this move will hopefully teach them something about how to manage the digital herd — something about social dynamics to learn here perhaps. I am also wondering if this will signal a new approach as it relates to organizations’ understanding and appreciation for the notions behind web 2.0 … I am always telling people that communities (real or online) have a tendency to self correct. In this case, the community is leading the FB in the direction they feel is right for the greater good.
Maybe I am just reading too much into the drama here, but there seems to be something in all this worth paying attention to. As always, I am probably way off in left field, but this feels like one of those “tipping point” moments. Man, I wish we could mobilize all citizens like this when the government does all of its stuff … that would be interesting — you know democracy at work.
maybe run the next election on Facebook or SecondLife? Nah… To get real mass participation, you’d have to do an American Idol knockoff. Who Wants To Be The President? Next, on Fox!
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