Last week, the geek world went Facebook crazy. This week, the UK is following suit. If you've not seen Facebook yet then it's worth a look if nothing else to understand viral effects. As a backdrop, Facebook started out as a college community creation project which has since opened its doors to the world. Last week, Facebook made a splash, announcing around 70 developer organisations that are creating applications for what is rapidly becoming a platform for anything to do with social computing. A good place to start checking the mountain of coverage is techmeme.
Sam Sethi has just said that he's received 90 linking requests in the last 2 weeks from people who want to be his Facebook friend. I've already got 43 in a matter of a few days. For me, the power of Facebook comes in three chunks:
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There are plenty of useful applications being built for the platform so I am more likely to use it as a destination to find things in which I have an interest, check news and so on.
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I can 'see' my contacts, the things in which they're interested, the groups they have joined and what they are doing. It's voyeurism on a grand scale.
More important, Facebook provides me with the opportunity to hook up with people I would not otherwise know but with whom I may share similar interests. That makes it incredibly useful for rapidly creating and extending existing networks of people. This is something that professionals are always interested in as it is the key way they spread influence.
There is however a downside. Both Donna Bogatin and Ivan Pope are concerned about the extent to which Facebook 'owns' your Facebook data and controls what many have hailed a developers free for all. Donna says:
My review of the Facebook Privacy Policy underscores Why Facebook is (indeed)scarier than Google and demonstrates how Facebook is in absolute control of Facebookers' every piece of daily intimate personal and professional data that they willingly and knowingly hand over to the Facebook corporation, for the ultimate financial benefit of founder Mark Zuckerberg and other shareholders.
As a user, do I care? No. Facebook is an open platform in the sense that all users can see all other users. You can hide certain of your profile data or not complete profiles form the public gaze but I'm not sure that's helpful to those who don't know you and might be interested in making a connection. To me, the more information you give, the better. Of course that doesn't resolve Donna's privacy concerns but I'm not convinced it matters. People who want to hide things do so for a reason.
In regard to the developer terms, Ivan is circumspect:
I would say that Facebook have looked at MySpace and learned a lesson : there are a lot of developers at the gates. They have built a platform that seems to open up their world in an exciting way. But they retain their fingers on the levers of power and they will exercise those levers as mercilessly as My Space when the time comes. That is their right, and the correct course of action. I just don't think we should believe the free access hype at this point.
Needless to say, Ivan's piece has sparked a healthy debate. If Facebook is smart, then it will do the same as Salesforce.com and simply buy up the best applications that come onto the platform. It's a good way to create another exit route but with the benefit of a 20 million (and growing) community upon which to test an idea. I can't imagine any developer walking away from that opportunity.
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