Mashable recently posted an article discussing the additions and changes Facebook has been making over the last week. From the ever-changing privacy settings to the addition of the “Timeline,” Facebook has had many people up in arms over, well, everything.
With any sort of change there will always be those that are in strict opposition of it, but it seems that Facebook’s changes tend to be more and more, for lack of a better word, “creepy.” Why does Facebook feel that we have the need to constantly know what every one of our friends is doing at any given time? Do I really care that “Bob” commented on a new picture “Mary” posted? Apparently, Facebook thinks I would be interested in that. Not only does Facebook still have the traditional Newsfeed, they added subscriptions, which is essentially Google +’s “circles.” You can pick what people you want to get updates on. I suppose that is better than having all of your friends’ clutter on your Newsfeed, but I feel, and many others do too, that Facebook is becoming entirely too complex. I mean, just to customize your privacy settings takes forever, mainly because you must “opt-out” of everything.
That brings me to another point about Facebook: Their business model is based on “opting-out” instead of “opting-in.” This is nothing new, but as they make more changes, they sneak in more and more ways of sharing your information, which means you have to keep an eye on the smallest of changes to Facebook to make sure your pictures aren’t being spread around all of a sudden. I think Facebook should go back to how sites like MySpace had it to where virtually everything on your profile was blocked by default. YOU had to change it if you wanted to share things, not like Facebook’s “Well, we’ll just start sharing your information until you tell us it’s not cool.”
While these changes have not kept me from using Facebook as much as I always have, I tend to remain stubborn when it comes to trying out their new features. I understand that Facebook wants to become almost the Wal-Mart of social media shops, the one-stop-shop for all of your networking needs, but I would rather get quality goods from smaller stores than sub-par crap from Wal-Mart.
