In the old world on online social lifestyle, Facebook was for sharing photos with friends, how you really felt about “it all” and maybe just maybe playing Mafia Wars. Then came along Twitter that said, “Hey I like to share!” And share it did, all of your tweets with any and everyone out there.
The world was two separate activities, two large continents: private life and public life.
This is what I would tell people when explaining the difference between the two. “On Facebook,” I’d say, “the only people that can see your photos, rants, and profile were people you’ve explicitly given permission to.” You had made them your Friend, and that granted them privilege.
This was the way things were “back then.” Privacy was king, and you didn’t want “crazy Internet stalkers” accessing your bikini photos- or your boss, or your mom (hi mom!).
Twitter was the public side of you, where you could share your expertise in hobbies, industry, and passions and at the same time, inform people that you just took your dog to the dog park. I’ve often suggested that Twitter is best when its a mix of business & pleasure.
You see how they were two happy worlds? Happy! Happy!
Then Facebook, large gigantic behemoth that it is, decided it wasn’t big enough or didn’t own enough of our online social lives, so they slowly started becoming more like Twitter. A while back you may remember when Facebook’s interface changed drastically, and then they put more emphasis on your Status Feed. This Twitter-like feed of you and your friend’s activities was only the beginning.
Today Facebook announced that it would begin pushing users to take their information public.
It was a friendly way of saying that every user will be asked to make their news feed(list of activities, Mafia/Farmville jobs, and anything else you shouldn’t be doing on Facebook) public.
Whammy! But that’s only half the news. The real definitive part is that:
New users will be public by default.
That means all new accounts- whether they understand this feature or not, will have a public news feed.
This is hugely different from Facebook’s previous role as privacy protector in the social space. And you can see why its just another step of Twitter-like activity. You can see Facebook saying “Why not us!?” when looking at how popular Twitter has become. As soon as Twitter started cutting deals with Google Search and Microsoft Bing (search)- Facebook saw its chance to do both public and private. Though this has me wondering if the private means anything to them anymore.
Announcement done- What’s it mean? What’s next?
- One thing that this move signifies is that the web is increasingly changing at a faster rate. Settling into cruise control just doesn’t cut it anymore. As soon as you’re comfortable, things change again. (Rats!)
- The evolution is primarily a good thing. Corporate survival and competition aside, the goal behind most of the changes on the web are a natural drive toward increased efficiency and effectiveness. Status quo may be comfortable, but we’ll continue to improve the way we communicate and socialize using the Internet.
- Privacy is no longer the focus. Potentially due to more informed users online, privacy is still important but the spotlight is on public, searchable social communication.
Update: Facebook allows you to pass on changing your privacy settings once, but the next time you log in you’re forced to make decisions.
Facebook is so massive and widely used that not much will overthrow them. Charging $$ for the use of the service and future innovation are the only two that come to mind. With the popularity of their advertising program, Facebook becomes like Google in a sense that it doesn’t need to charge users. Future innovation is anyones game, though it appears Facebook is doing it’s best to stay in front.
