Recently on This Week in Google, Leo deleted his Facebook account during his live podcast. He viewed the Zuckerberg amorality with respect to his (and our) personal data as reason to set a positive example for the rest of us. In the discussion of what might replace Facebook the focus was on a celebrity or business controlling their online identity. But for those of us that are “private” entities Facebook provides a different function. It is a one stop shop for finding out what’s up with our friends.
I’m a fan (not in the Facebook sense) of the diaspora project but I question whether the open web isn’t nearly there. I could just set up a folder in Google Reader that collected updates from my friend’s blogs and online albums, but many of them aren’t public and require me to log in. Now, if Tweetdeck figured out a way to give me access to feeds from sites that require me to sign in, they could rule the world instead of Facebook. Anyway, the great thing about Facebook is I’m one click away from seeing what everyone is up to and I really dig that convenience. So, I continue to wrestle with this issue of privacy and its antithesis – Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
