Facebook announces next step in world domination at F8…are you scared?
While the keynote at F8 was epic (we’ll get to why), the sessions afterwards were somewhat weak. Sometimes it was because they were mostly moderated or given by Facebook staff (not experienced presenters) and sometimes because, well, the topic was boring.
But there were great discussions being had in between and I was fortunate enough to find myself in the middle of one with Robert Scoble and a few other folks.
If that discussion had a session title it would probably have been, “Facebook is making big moves to essentially take over the web, and that’s both exciting and incredibly scary.”
Scoble was more on the scared side. Terrified might be a better way to describe it. His point goes deep as he once was erased from Facebook. As in, he didn’t exist according to Facebook for a day. Which is one thing a few years ago when Facebook was just a cute little social network.
The announcements they made today, if they come true (and Scoble thinks they will and I see no reason to disagree), Facebook will end up owning the social experience on EVERY website. And every website will have a social experience for them to own.
Once that happens Facebook will become incredibly powerful. Not only will they pretty much know everything about you, but they are moving to a point where they own the people part of the web. Imagine for instance if Facebook decides to try to help a certain political party during the next election. They could virtually silence the competition while amplifying everything that their party says online.
I’d love to hear what you think about this. Some possible additional discussion points…
We talked about how this makes Facebook much more powerful than Google and might in fact start unseating Google’s lock on search as Facebook ramps up on that aspect of their business.
We also talked about what, other than the government, could possibly stop Facebook once their plans take effect.
Chime in!
I'm with Scoble. It's scary. 7 days ago, a friend of mine asked a question on her wall. Basically, she was needing a URL shortener that has more analytics than bit.ly for work or was wondering if she could have multiple bit.ly URLs for the same URL. I responded and said that you couldn't have multiple URLs, but someone had told me about cli.gs and that it had more analytics.
A box popped up and said that I was doing something that Facebook users had deemed annoying. What? Posting a comment to a question a friend asked? My message did not go through. I changed it so that it said bitDOTly and cliDOTgs. That one was posted. Later, I noticed I that if I hit share, I couldn't. It would tell me that something had gone wrong and they were working on it. Then I tried to leave a status update and I couldn't.
All Facebook says in a nutshell is that “don't bother trying to contact them and that your ban will be for as long as they deem necessary and that you better not do what you were doing or the ban will be extended”. Uhm. Ok. Since I don't really know exactly WTH I did, that makes it kind of hard. Is posting on a friend's wall going to make the restriction last longer? Who the hell knows. You send email to disabled@facebook and from what I can tell from message boards, NO ONE from Facebook will EVER contact you about your problem. And it might rectify itself in a couple of hours or a few days (again, remember, I'm on day 7). I don't know what I did to get restricted and Facebook will never tell me. It kind of scares the crap out of me if they take over the internet that on whim, they can disable or even delete my account. I can now post status updates but I still can't post any links or click share on anyone's posts, but maybe someday the randomness of Facebook will let me do so again.
I think that they should
a) tell you wth you did
b) give you some recourse to ask them about it
c) have some sort of review panel
I know I got all long winded with this, but bottom line….scary… and add to all this the fact that they and other websites will potentially know EVERYTHING, it's even more scary.
It really is scary! My coworker @Darren_Kennedy has been trying to get someone at Facebook to help us figure out why the DMA's Facebook page randomly disappeared this week? One day it was there with 2,000+ fans and the next day it was gone? And it is next to impossible to get any customer support at Facebook to even know why they deleted it, if it's just a glitch in the network, if they can bring it back? There was no warning as far as I know – and the e-mailing [email protected] has been completely useless. If anyone has any suggestions on this please let us know!
I hate to bring the “Walled Garden” term into any discussion these days, particularly in light of the recent iPad concerns (warranted or not), but that's the illusion that Facebook offers.
The Internet remains a kind of Wild West (albeit more like the Sam Peckinpah days of that era than “Tombstone”), and Facebook provides a seemingly safe haven where even your mom feels comfortable. Here, she can play little games, check on the status of loved ones, even make comments without the trouble of seeking out blogs or forums. And who doesn't want to click on things they like? They do not realize that they are feeding a giant demographic collection machine with every like, every comment, every new song they add or movie they rate.
What's a little scary is that even though I know better, still I will “like” things here and there and do so with barely a thought. Of course, I have the presence of mind to be vigilant about my privacy settings. What'd be most illuminating … and perhaps disturbing … would be the actual statistics of how many Facebook users even visit the privacy settings page after joining, much less edit them. My guess is we'd see a very low percentage.
And why would they? Facebook means them no harm, so far as they can tell. (This implied benevolence will be to Facebook's benefit more and more as the Facebook logo spreads to more and more websites like a kind of Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.)
It's frustrating to me that Facebook doesn't implement design with the user in mind. I'm not speaking of usability, though that could be argued as well, particularly in the manner Preferences are arranged. This is about their record of updating their site (both look/feel and function) without warning or audience notification. The home page changes, recent statuses are replaced with Top News, application permissions shift slightly or drastically. Sure, this is caught and covered by the likes of Mashable within hours … but our less 'Net aware parents and cousins don't read Mashable. And because they don't, these changes are treated as mere inconveniences that spawn the occasional mini-protest by way of groups like “Change the Homepage Back or Else!” (hosted, ironically, on Facebook).
Of course, it comes down to individual responsibility. You wouldn't walk around town wearing a suit emblazoned with your personal information and favorite authors like some ego-driven NASCAR driver, so don't do it online either. The giant demographic collection machine marches on, so be careful what you feed it.
But the trouble comes from where Facebook plans to go from here. And just how much more of the Internet is pulled within the walls of the garden.
I hate to turn this into a tangent, but I just got a phone call from my partner and she asked me if I had gotten the “interest” box to pop up yet (I haven't). It popped up for her and she was asked if she wanted FB to automatically “like” everything that was in her profile including where she works, hometown, music, books, movies, schools etc or if she wanted to do it manually. She hit manually and then selected her work and where she went to school. Then her profile only showed those two things. Everything else is gone. It looks like she has no interests.
I've been on Facebook since 2005 and overall, I like Facebook, but this is getting to be a little too big brother for me. I should be able to list my interests in my profile without having to “Like” them as well. I don't care if the giant demographics machine knows that I like Imogen Heap or that I have a podcast or whatever, but I should have the option to “Like” WTH I want to without being penalized.
Facebook likes to say that they value our privacy, but they continue to prove that they don't.
Just to play devil's advocate here. Everyone's interests were linked before this change, but when you clicked on the link it didn't really take you anywhere. So, now, if you like “Golf” it takes you to a wiki type page about golf (https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Golf/105942022…) where you can see how many other people in Facebook have the same common interest, learn more about the subject, and see when you're friends have mentioned “golf” in related posts. What's the big deal about being connected with other people that have the same interests as you? Plus, most people can probably figure out your likes and interests just by “Googling” you.
I'm fine with being connected to a certain point, except literally, when my partner didn't let Facebook automatically “like” her interests, ALL her interests disappeared except for the things she checked right then (like her job and her schools). And she couldn't get them back. So now, because she wanted to have a little control over the content of her profile page and”like” things manually, she's having to go back and add them in and “like” them for them to show up. So, for me, it's not a matter of people knowing my interests or whatever, it's a matter of Facebook not letting me even control what I “like”. I don't know if this was a fluke because it hasn't been rolled out to me yet and I don't know anyone else it's been rolled out to either, but it seems a little odd.
I think you're right Thomas, the scary thing here is people's ignorance (or lack of caring about) when it comes to putting their personal information online. The college kids that have never had their identity stolen or known anyone with that problem, they don't realize the seriousness of it. And they grew up online, so you can imagine that everything about them is out there.
I think the point is Facebook has a great deal of responsibility in this. If they really want to be the ones to make the web social, and to have that social experience running on their platform, they're going to have to take a strong stance on people's privacy.
The announcement that developers can now store Facebook users' personal data indefinitely (as opposed to the previous 24 hour restriction) is helpful for developers but could be problematic for unknowing Facebook users.
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