When we first thought of Beacon, our goal was to build a simple product to let people share information across sites with their friends. It had to be lightweight so it wouldn't get in people's way as they browsed the web, but also clear enough so people would be able to easily control what they shared. We were excited about Beacon because we believe a lot of information people want to share isn't on Facebook, and if we found the right balance, Beacon would give people an easy and controlled way to share more of that information with their friends.
But we missed the right balance....
Missed the right balance? Boy, I'll say....and it's his second time for this "missed the right balance"...
Now, does anyone other than me remember that last September, Facebook had to apologize for placing RSS feeds where a critical mass of Facebook customers really didn't want them??? And that was well before Facebook was open to the general (aging) public...
So much for the contention that young people enjoy having less privacy and that we'll all have to just have to get used to having less privacy....
Although it seems to me that Zuckerberg keeps trying to foist upon Facebook users various ways to use our Facebook content for his benefit vs. to the benefit of Facebook users. Our Facebook content, if you think about it, *could* conceivably be seen as "user-generated content" and something that so many folks are trying to find ways to leverage or monetize for their benefit at the expense of our privacy.
Often, leveraging UGS is usually at the expense of either our privacy or our benefit--remember, there are MSM networks that are constantly bugging us for our "UGC" so that they can hold it and re-use it in perpetuity (see this post) with the meager benefit of maybe seeing it used somewhere. Don't even *think* of asking for money or asking to post it on your own blog once they have it...
Yet Facebook's still rummaging around in our metaphorical underwear drawers--and this time sending it to us with a little bow: Techcrunch reports that Facebook's now including the text, rather than a just a link, in our Facebook email alerts. Arrington thinks this is ok, as it's not making us click back to Facebook to see our Facebook email...
Jim Benson asks what this represents, "other than Mike Arrington's too lazy to click on a link?" (once again, Jim makes me giggle...) Aside from Jim's contention that email isn't dead (good point there) he also contends that:
"Facebook is getting the message that the information on Facebook is someone else's property that they are entrusted with, in exchange for a $15B US valuation. If Facebook continues to hoard our data, people will go elsewhere.
And that's the difference between doing something for us and giving them our personal information, be it through RSS feeds (like last year) or Beacon (like this year.)
Personally, I don't really care about the email...clicking thru to Facebook email is sometimes just a good excuse for me to go in and update my status. Ah, yes--in my corner of the world, the whole "social networking" thing is reaching its own level of equilibrium with the old tried-and-true "f2f socializing" thing. For some reason, I'm kind of liking the privacy that I have with f2f socializing. At least with f2f, you get to know me over time rather than me playing some kind of online fan dance with my online profile. Don't get me wrong: social networking sites are kind of cool. But they only reveal those things we want to reveal--without the benefit of seeing/hearing the other person. Social networking is a great way of keeping track of people we know, but it really shouldn't substitute for time shared in f2f environments--esp. if it means having to lose privacy and control over our "content."
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