Is Facebook evil? Just as I finally opened a Facebook account and dipped my toes in, that question suddenly bubbled up across the tech blogosphere and beyond.
My own first Facebook experience was vaguely unnerving. No sooner did I log in than up popped four names of people whom Facebook thought might be friends. One I know, but the other three names were unfamiliar. A quick Google showed that one lives in the same county and belongs to a group I’m active in. We’ve doubtless met, even though I didn’t recognize her name. The other two have no apparent connection to me.
I have a decent online footprint; ‘data mining’ doesn’t need to dig very deep to find me. So what was unnerving? I think it was the hit and (mostly) miss nature of the connections offered.
Facebook did not come up with any commenters on my blogs, nor bloggers I regularly visit and comment on, nor in fact anyone who is part of my actual online social network. The one ‘hit’ is someone I’ve done work for; he’s mentioned on my LinkedIn page, but our connection has otherwise been by email, and the work I’ve done for him is not online.
So, why those particular names? The list wasn’t merely random, but it was odd enough to make me wonder how Facebook came up with it.
That said, I’m not terribly worried about my online privacy – what is genuinely private I don’t put on the Internet, and you shouldn’t either. But the experience was odd enough to leave me just a bit uncomfortable with Facebook.
And there is a more practical concern: For the most popular site in the universe, Facebook is confusing and not very easy to use. When I go to ‘my’ page (I just logged on), I see a couple more recommended friends I never heard of, pitches for some commercial websites, and no hint of how to do anything interesting or self expressive. WordPress and Blogger were a lot easier to figure out!
For now, when it comes to adding ‘channels,’ I think I’ll focus on Twitter.
In other news, we will be making some changes at TecTrends over the next week or two, and I will keep you posted as they take shape.