
The Day Facebook Changed Forever: Messages to Become Public By Default - nreece
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/the_day_facebook_changed_messages_to_become_pulic.php
======
garply
In case you didn't read the story, this title isn't accurate. ReadWriteWeb
printed a retraction: Messages for those members with profiles that are
already public will become public. Everyone else will have the option of
making their statuses public.

~~~
gaius
In my little corner of FB people are already reporting seeing things that they
never did before (e.g. status updates and photos from cow-orkers). If FB screw
this up there will be a huge backlash.

~~~
zimbabwe
If FB screws this up there will be a huge backlash for a few weeks, then FB
will apologize. FB screws up with some regularity, but they check themselves
quickly afterwards.

------
chanux
Facebook: The Twitter wanna be.

~~~
gaius
It's exasperating to see Facebook flailing about like this. A corner of the
Internet where there is no anonymity and you only get what you opt into all my
intuition says could be an incredibly valuable thing. FB essentially solved
the spam problem for example (app invites notwithstanding) - something not
even Gmail has managed. They can do things with photos Flickr can only dream
of, since Flickr can't assume that the people in the photos will be members.
Same with events. They could be sewing up all sorts of commercial arrangements
here. If I create a LAN party event FB should be handling ordering pizza
through Papa John's website (and taking a cut). If I create a group trip event
FB should be partnering with travel companies, cinemas, everything.

Instead they're dumbing everything down to become what exactly, a lamer
Twitter than Twitter itself?

~~~
zimbabwe
The retraction seems to be saying Facebook will make it obvious to new users
just how privacy works. I've found that my friends tend to follow those
notices, somewhat surprisingly. Facebook will let people know what's going on
once it's happening, because you're right - a lot of people do care about
privacy.

I don't see Facebook's going public as a bad thing, as long as it's not a
mandatory change. Their feed system certainly works publicly: It's much more
involved than Twitter, and it supports a lot of things people would use other
sites for. I use it instead of Flickr for public photos. I'm thinking of
switching my Vimeo videos over so I can close my Vimeo account and run most of
my online activities from one place. I like writing private friend-based
notes, but if I didn't then Facebook notes would make for an attractively
minimal solution.

Facebook's been gradually simplifying itself. I don't see how it's dumbing
down when they've been _adding_ features rather than taking them away. The new
live feed is incredible, for instance.

~~~
gaius
The new live feed is a pain. Why should I have to block every damn application
individually? I want to see 3 things: status, events, photos and _that's it_.
In fact that and messages is all I want from FB, I shouldn't even need to be
aware of any of the crap.

~~~
zimbabwe
So you're really happy that Facebook offers right-off-the-bat filters for all
three of those things, right? Because that solves your problem without your
ever having to worry about seeing the other things.

~~~
gaius
3 separate filters - no way to combine them and make the newsfeed like it used
to be.

------
wmeredith
I've said it elsewhere here before, but if there's one thing I can say for
certain, it's that you're not going to beat Twitter (or any other dead-simple
niche service) by trying to be everything to everyone. I am certainly painting
in broad strokes here, but this feels a little Microsoft-y to me.

~~~
zimbabwe
Normally I'd agree with you. In Facebook's case, I'll make the argument that
Facebook's only trying to do a single thing, but that single thing is so
ambitious that they're justified in taking this move.

The goal of Facebook is to let people make a profile of themselves online and
keep in touch with friends. That's a widespread, two-pronged goal. Way back
before the last two redesigns, Facebook focused a lot on the profile part of
the equation. That's when they had the two-column approach with no theming
whatsoever. Then they added apps and profiles became overspammed, and they
made the slow switch over to the feed system. In the last few months, they've
been adding public profile features, without sacrificing their original intent
whatsoever. That's impressive. It means that my family can maintain its closed
Facebook connections, but my public-minded friends can go public and not have
to worry about managing other web sites. Furthermore, the options are
granular, meaning you can make parts of you public and keep other parts
private. I refuse to friend family members, but I can give them public photo
links so they can still be involved in my goings-on. It's a terrific solution.

I have to wonder if all of the "Facebook=Twitter" critics use Facebook at all,
because it's the most deluded thing I've heard. People are fucking _mental_ if
they think Facebook's trying to supplant Twitter. It's taking some pages out
of their book, absolutely, but if you can mimic a site without removing any
functionality then you're doing something good. Now, my Facebook feed isn't a
bunch of 140-character updates. People post links and photos and videos and
they all show up. Any post can spark a conversation. Whereas on Twitter I post
something into a void, on Facebook friends comment on my status updates.
Conversations begin. Furthermore, because Facebook treats a user's wall like a
continuous stream, if I post something to a friend's wall, all our friends see
it. I've actually had friends meet up and become friends through talking on a
post on my wall, which is one of those things where you can't help but think
"Wow, this is really cool".

Facebook won't beat Twitter where Twitter reigns supreme. But they'll add
Twitter-like features and make their users happier, and less likely to switch
over to using other services.

------
pyropenguin
Oh good, a way to make it so people don't have to hack me and now everyone can
see my details, well if I set it that way... Interesting way to deal with
information being available, let your users THINK they want it. Then you don't
have to fix anything.

Article on Facebook hack from June 22nd
[http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/22/is-privacy-an-
illusion-...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/06/22/is-privacy-an-illusion-
facebook-fans-claim-hack-exposes-private-profile-information/)

~~~
zimbabwe
From the article:

 _We have identified this bug and closed the loophole. We don’t have any
evidence to suggest that it was ever exploited for malicious purposes._

Yeah, it's not like Facebook already solved the problem. It's fun thinking of
them as utter incompetents who don't spend years executing very subtle
redesigns without alienating their hundred million users, because they haven't
been radically changing the site since it first launched.

------
pwncat
Note: if you trust any company run by Mark Zuckerberg with anything, you're
doing it wrong.

