“Facebook’s Death Spiral Has Begun,” Lance Ulanoff of PC Magazine declares. Okay, get past the dramatic headline, and consider whether he’s right.
Ulanoff makes a comparison that I thought of the first time I ever used Facebook: AOL in its heyday. Facebook, like AOL, draws you into its private space, and then bombards you with chumminess. Most of it isn’t real, of course; Ulanoff talks about how Facebook makes it seem like there’s much more activity among users that there really is, thanks to clever use of opt-outs for pokes and invitations and whatnot.
And you can see the backlash already. It’s largely deserved, given what a privacy nightmare Facebook is; stories of users having trouble removing information from the site, being punished for daring to think that they themselves own their web of social relationships, contact information, and content. And of course the infamous Beacon screwups.
My larger issue with Facebook is that they require you to enter their world and visit their site to do anything. I think it’s only because the Facebook site is very well implemented that people are willing to put up with it.
Personally, I think it’s a pain in the ass, and I only use it because I do get some value out of it (specifically, keeping up with some local organizations). I’d be thrilled to see all that move elsewhere so I don’t have to wade through invitations to take movie quizzes and install dumb applications to get what I want.
What do you think? Do you find Facebook useful? Do you think they are in trouble? What would you like to see change?
February 29th, 2008 at 9:23 am
I recently took my facebook profile down. It seems that everyone’s profile is littered more with apps than it is about information about themselves. For all the eyesores that exist on MySpace I like it better just for the fact that people are better able to show their personality on their site, even if it is in poor taste. The stories of privacy invasion creep me out too, I don’t want to log onto a social networking site that tells everyone what movie I saw recently or what I bought yesterday on Amazon. I think it was a fad and MySpace will still remain #1.
February 29th, 2008 at 9:31 am
If there was a better option, would you not be there already ?
February 29th, 2008 at 9:34 am
I think that privacy invasion is largely unavoidable. As long as there are systems to protect privacy, there will be people whose manifest destiny it is to invade those systems. The better the system, the more determined (and talented) will be the potential infiltrators. IMHO, of course.
March 1st, 2008 at 7:21 am
Hi Kelvin - you’re right about infiltrators. In this case, though, that’s not what I’m thinking of - I’m thinking about when a company like Facebook makes inappropriate use of customer data and customer trust in them (the Beacon “feature” being the best example). That isn’t infiltration, it’s privacy problems that are intentionally designed into the system.