I decided to take a look at the “new” Facebook and, well… it looks nice. We’ll see how people go about using it in the next few weeks, but with the popularity of the socialnetworking website it will probably be just another update that users will remember as “always being that way.”
The new commenting on every newsfeed item feels a little like anything else on the Internet when concerning “new” features – we’ve seen it before. Friendfeed was my first experience with a newsfeed with a commenting feature. The one thing Friendfeed had over Facebook was that I decided what I would share based on other tools I used on the Internet, like Twitter, Flickr or my blog.
It was one place my friends could come and see practically everything I was posting/publishing on the Internet. I liked that control. Facebook now boasts that same flexibility as it will ask you on participating webpages (when you’re logged into Facebook only – I hope) if you want to share a certain event. It’s kind of like Beacon V.2 project with a passive questioning voice.
“Oh, Facebook wants to simplify my shared life and it’s even polite and asks. That’s okay.”
Whether or not the information stays unaware to Facebook if you click “no” is still a mystery. The question it seems these days is if convenience is worth more than privacy. Maybe I would feel better if I find out that Facebook allows you to import a list of sites you want Facebook to keep track of for you. For now I’ll stay with Friendfeed because it only watches what I want it to.
Getting back to commenting, I’m still waiting for the first, “OMG, ur frends wit him!?!?!!1!one” comment.
