What is the point of having a network in Facebook if your privacy is set to “everyone” for “everything”? While Facebook has had a fanstastic run-up in usage, they may have made a serious tactical error with their revised approach to privacy.
We have all seen the charts showing the change in share from MySpace to Facebook – showing at once the power of creating a “better moustrap” at Facebook as well as the true lack of any sustainable barrier to competition in the market.
It had always seemed to me that Facebook had orginially developed so many users because it felt “safe” to share private elements of your life to a private network of your friends. If those customers feel tricked into exposing their life to strangers, any sense of brand affiliation will be lost. In trying to
The NYTimes posted a nice summary of these changes in Facebook privacy settings.
“Facebook is pushing itself to become more public than ever, and that has a lot of potential upsides. However, they should continue to keep users in mind by giving them options to control the information being broadcast.”
Meanwhile, if you have not modified your Facebook privacy settings, maybe now would be a good time to do that…
