Just like Google, Facebook keeps your data in house. Their privacy setting are working great now. At one point they were hard to use, but this is a problem with new services that aren't polished yet and when trying to get more users to share things to make it more interesting for others (to grown).
With that reasoning, if the IPO, beginning of monetization and Facebook's growth does something to privacy settings, it will only improve them.
Both Facebook and Google share many business practices and monetizing practices. While Google had the unfortunate timing for their IPO (2004) after dot com bubble burst, the exact same thing could had been said about them. Many slashdotters, however, still believe that Google does the right thing.
For me the interesting thing is how similar these two companies actually are. Both companies base their revenue on advertisement and gathering user data, provide tons of open source contributions and are free for everyone to use.
What I cannot understand is why Google gets a free pass on this while slashdotters absolutely hate Facebook. Both Google and Facebook have done their mistakes, but only Facebook is constantly cried about. I can only guess it's because Facebook goes against slashdotters nerdy backgrounds. Gee, we have a place where every person can discuss, share their life the way they want to and be social.
It isn't the first time I've read how internet should be for geeks only and normal people not given access. And that right there shows some really horrible side of geeks. It's align the lines of hating gays because you can't stand someone being different from you. Yet geeks feel like everyone hates them for being different.
Maybe it's some traumatizing event from childhood or something, but after I realized this, I cannot think geeks as nothing more than the most hateful group of people towards people with other kind of thinking. This could also very well be the reasons why geeks are bullied - if you treat other like shit, you will be treated like shit. Be nice to them and they will be nice to you.
Facebook is still a young company. They have worked more on their grown rather than revenue by now, and it has worked very well for them. Unlike MySpace, I don't think Facebook will be going away anytime soon either. They have grown past that phase and are now the number one social network in every country. We used to have same kind of services in my country even back in 2000 - they're all now seriously in bad shape because Facebook took all the users.
I also don't see why Facebook would need to use any of this for privacy violation. Just like Google, their business depends on not giving out the information, but by establishing way for advertisers to use it via their platforms. Selling out info would kill them, and even more so than if Google did it. The information, users etc is the most single biggest asset they have. This is also why Google+ and Diaspora are losing heavily and will never amount to Facebook - they don't have the users, so no other users will come.
Working in investment industry, I would seriously suggest buying Facebook shares. It is, and will be, the internets social network. They will be heavily increasing their profits once they start working on it instead of growth. It will still also heavily grow when rest of the world gets online. Currently there are amount 800 million people (a very impressive number!), but there is room for over 6 billion more. And those won't be joining MySpace, Google+ or Diaspora, they will join Facebook because that's where everyone is.
Slashdot Mirror
Just like Google, Facebook keeps your data in house. Their privacy setting are working great now. At one point they were hard to use, but this is a problem with new services that aren't polished yet and when trying to get more users to share things to make it more interesting for others (to grown).
With that reasoning, if the IPO, beginning of monetization and Facebook's growth does something to privacy settings, it will only improve them.
Both Facebook and Google share many business practices and monetizing practices. While Google had the unfortunate timing for their IPO (2004) after dot com bubble burst, the exact same thing could had been said about them. Many slashdotters, however, still believe that Google does the right thing.
For me the interesting thing is how similar these two companies actually are. Both companies base their revenue on advertisement and gathering user data, provide tons of open source contributions and are free for everyone to use.
What I cannot understand is why Google gets a free pass on this while slashdotters absolutely hate Facebook. Both Google and Facebook have done their mistakes, but only Facebook is constantly cried about. I can only guess it's because Facebook goes against slashdotters nerdy backgrounds. Gee, we have a place where every person can discuss, share their life the way they want to and be social.
It isn't the first time I've read how internet should be for geeks only and normal people not given access. And that right there shows some really horrible side of geeks. It's align the lines of hating gays because you can't stand someone being different from you. Yet geeks feel like everyone hates them for being different.
Maybe it's some traumatizing event from childhood or something, but after I realized this, I cannot think geeks as nothing more than the most hateful group of people towards people with other kind of thinking. This could also very well be the reasons why geeks are bullied - if you treat other like shit, you will be treated like shit. Be nice to them and they will be nice to you.
Facebook is still a young company. They have worked more on their grown rather than revenue by now, and it has worked very well for them. Unlike MySpace, I don't think Facebook will be going away anytime soon either. They have grown past that phase and are now the number one social network in every country. We used to have same kind of services in my country even back in 2000 - they're all now seriously in bad shape because Facebook took all the users.
I also don't see why Facebook would need to use any of this for privacy violation. Just like Google, their business depends on not giving out the information, but by establishing way for advertisers to use it via their platforms. Selling out info would kill them, and even more so than if Google did it. The information, users etc is the most single biggest asset they have. This is also why Google+ and Diaspora are losing heavily and will never amount to Facebook - they don't have the users, so no other users will come.
Working in investment industry, I would seriously suggest buying Facebook shares. It is, and will be, the internets social network. They will be heavily increasing their profits once they start working on it instead of growth. It will still also heavily grow when rest of the world gets online. Currently there are amount 800 million people (a very impressive number!), but there is room for over 6 billion more. And those won't be joining MySpace, Google+ or Diaspora, they will join Facebook because that's where everyone is.
Just my two cents,
John