First off, I am
borrowing a little from Mark Cuban on this, but I have been thinking about Facebook's latest moves and his article sparked my writing. It's an interesting time right now for Facebook as they release new functionality to extend its reach into every web page and service. Soon, everything we do on the net can be easily shared, incorporated into Facebook. Imagine a world where the NYTimes reports which articles your friends are reading and let's you easily spark discussions on the topic, just for you. Music playlists that are easily shared and commented on? What Facebook is doing is adding social connectivity to all our online activity, which is becoming most of our activity. And in doing so, it is plugging into our core existential social needs. Technology, which often is seen as taking us away from a social context, will now be bringing us back in and creating more meaning. And no one else can remotely achieve this. Facebook is the platform (which is also why I disagree with Mark Cuban on Facebook needing a mobile OS, they can just deeply integrate into the contact list because that's who owns our social connectivity. You can't launch a product without that).
And if Facebook defines our social connectivity, who are friends are to us, it inversely defines who we are to our friends. Why should I only be tagged on Facebook in photos or notes? What if this blog is tagged (besides me posting it to my activity feed) or a research article I write or a mention of me in huge story in the NY Times (see you this summer)? Check out
Taggable, which does exactly that. Now the whole electronic universe can be captured on my Facebook profile and the work crowdsourced by friends. One day, it might be automated based on context and matching algorithms (this Trevor Sumner instead of
this one).
Facebook encompasses so much. It's how we find out what's going on, what our friends are reading and recommending. As Mark Cuban points out, how often do you use Google anymore to find reading material ... If every service becomes social, is there a difference between the social web and the web itself?
Next up: Facebook is the new App Store.
2 comments:
Count me as someone who will never click on a single facebook-related button on a site that is not facebook. I want everything segregated; what I do on facebook should be on facebook and facebook only (and only accessible to the people I choose via my privacy settings). Based on the early reactions to facebook's announcements, 90+% of people agree with me.
Generally people err on the side of privacy until they see the value of the utility. You choose what you share, over time that is likely to increase.
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