At the Facebook Developer’s conference on 4/21, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook will connect with other sites to share and store user interaction with the web. For what it means and how to use it, see the Definitive Guide For Publishers, Users and Competitors at ReadWriteWeb.
There was a public outcry from some on privacy, but Facebook is betting that a large percentage of its 400 million users will not follow the directions in The NY Times on how to opt out.
And Zuckerberg is betting that a large percentage will even see the benefits of connecting sites to Facebook – a one-stop shop to broadcast your preferences to the world. Some of the changes are minor (for example, other sites weren’t allowed to hold some information about Facebook customers more than 24 hours, and now they can, but some developers were hacking this anyway according to Mashable.)
Detractors are saying Facebook is evil, and must be stopped. (Zuckerberg comparing Facebook to heaven, with him in charge, sets him up for slings and arrows.) Dave Winer says he’s an audacious meglomaniac.
Will it just be a lot of noise, a sea of meaningless “likes” as Jeff Jarvis says? Or does that already describe Facebook? (Farmville, anyone?)
Jarvis goes on to call for complete control over what you publish and connect, and I agree.
I want to know: Do you think Facebook gets social networking, and this is just a natural extension of it? Or do you think they are big brother and must be stopped by the market or government regulation?
– Kathy Sandler
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Facebook evil? No. A bit hard to integrate right now, yes, it seems …
(check your NYT link!)
Denton: I fixed the NYT link, thanks. One of the references to Facebook’s Open Graph as “evil” is Chris Messina’s blog post at http://tinyurl.com/256knau. He calls it “openwashing” since all “likes” lead back to Facebook. And he says “your identity is too important to be owned by any one company.”-Kathy
See Wired’s take on it in “Facebook’s Gone Rogue; It’s Time for an Open Alternative” at http://tinyurl.com/37xahjo
My family always say that I am wasting my time here at web, but I know I am getting knowledge all the time by reading such pleasant posts.