People like me love to see the way conversations evolve over topics like Facebook vs. Myspace. One conversation I’ve been interested in lately involves points illustrated by Danah Boyd and Robert Scoble, with Danah highlighting FB’s not-so-perfect move away from privacy, and Scoble arguing for a more open FB.
It’s fascinating to me to see two camps of the privacy issue make their arguments through blogs, and its even more fascinating to see the issue play out within the structures of FB and MS themselves. Within my own friends, even. Should FB be more private? Who should be looking at my profile? One one hand, I have friends who do in fact want to be mini-celebrities. Everyone should see them, who they are, all their pictures, all their apps–and most importantly–should be their friend. On the other, I have my friends who, if I want to surprise them with a thank-you card or something, I can’t, because I can’t find any of their contact information.
It is pretty clear that most people I know mid-20’s or younger are on the lets-keep-stalkers-and-employers out of my FB profile side of the issue. But I read comments made from Scoble and others who want uber-transparency I see a bit of myself, because I think somewhere we do want everyone to know us. In fact, I think thats why we see this argument about FB apps come up, and how they’ve destroyed the pristine-clean image FB used to have. People’s pages are flooded with apps because they want other people to know what interests them. Point blank. What people forget is, that not everyone wants to know everything that interests them.
Outside of their friends, that is. But apps are a shiny new toy, and the novelty hasn’t worn off yet. I suspect we’ll see a similar evolution of the FB privacy battle.
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