Ehhh with any luck FB will die or we'll end up with several FB clones and dilute social media so thematter will be moot. Now with any luck (speaking of cell phones) if FB can find a way to marginalize cell phones, then that' will be a different story.Imagine loggin onto face book and talk live. Imo, this would be logical because at the rate these kids wreck their credit via cell phone charges, cell phone usuage is likely to drop off.
So many of the teens like mine use oovoo for live face to face chat on ipods at no cost. kids are sharp. They know what works and saves then money. Its the foolish parents running around trying to act like their teens using FB to feel young again . Like they are hanging out in an internet virtual parking lot with the gang like they did 30 years ago.
Interesting post. I just deleted my FB account a month back when they announced their new no privacy terms. Initially FB was great for sharing pics with friends and family and keeping an eye on my kids online activity. As an employer I see FB as a big drain on productivity. Long term I see FB as just another Bebo or MySpace, so happy investing in the ipo. On a related topic I am also pulling all google chrome and gmail accounts due to their no privacy rules.
Unlike you Andrew, many people prefer not to have a lot of personal information about them, their families, their relationships, including personal photos, locations, ages, names, etc. publicly visible to complete strangers. For this reason alone there will always be people who opt-out of Facebook. Indeed, my understanding is that Facebook membership may actually be declining or plateauing in developed countries - perhaps partly due to numerous privacy issues that Facebook has had to deal with. Out of two prospective employees, I know that the one with a Facebook account will waste more company time and Internet bandwidth on non-work related matters. Out of two prospective employees, I may not decide to interview the one with a Facebook account if I see something on his/her profile that puts me off. I could be more persuaded about relevance of a LinkedIn profile.
facebook is not good at technology it is good at spotting trends, well, better even at setting trends for aimless and demotivated teens and those who have a hard time to grow up. Cynicism aside, I could name you about 50 top IT firms that are better at coming up with code that would top the currently best/most efficient voice encoding/decoding and transport algorithms if given the right resources and incentives. FB is DEFINITELY not on that list!!!
and what would you possibly want to hide that may matter to others? Are you gay in the bible belt? Or plot a terrorist attack. Else why would you be afraid that Google publishes your picture that YOU YOURSELF uploaded onto others contact lists onto which you ended up BY YOUR CHOICE? This whole privacy debate is so overblown. People with too much time at hand and skeletons in their closets are the loudest when it comes to privacy issues.
I have nothing to hide hell when I google my name every presentation or federal filing I have ever made for my employer is available. But it does not mean I want my or my families FB personal information public as well. It was not many years ago you only had to worry about your name in the telephone whitepages book for privacy.
I have to laugh as we pass all these laws protecting our privacy, we had privacy with zero laws.The more privacy laws the less we have, Ever read Hippa? A privacy act where everyone has access except your mom and dad.
that is completely untrue. If a single filing you made in confidence to your employer was leaked then take it up with your employer. Especially if privacy was promised and this is broken. But you are diverting from the main issue: Someone who signs up with FB and Google for that matter knows that he surrenders his privacy to a degree. I am amused some are shocked to hear that news. Since when is anything free in this world? The email account came for free? Well, think twice. My point is that I have my first and last name in my email address and I have not the slightest problem with that. The internet is not a medium that assures privacy. If you need privacy then dont use the internet, do not purchase online, do not surrender any private information. But betting on absolute safety of your private information when purchasing a book through Amazon is utterly naive thinking. Insisting on privacy when at the same time surrendering it through the usage of FB & co is at the very least hypocritical.
Lol, so you set up your kids with an FB account of which you knew the password so you can monitor their online activity? How creepy. Or would you beat your kids if they turned on the privacy switch within their face book account and changed passwords so you can't peek anymore? How can you even believe that the pictures you wanted to share only with your "friends" will never be archived, analyzed, in order to push better targeted advertising? And now you close all your email accounts? Oh right, your AOL account is safe, good to keep that one. LOL, I love conspiracy theorists. They are such funny creatures...buhaaa, the internet boogeyman is coming after you.