Facebook opened the flood gates this morning, allowing anyone to sign up for an account. Previously, Facebook was restricted to college students with a .edu email address, then it was opened up for a few corporations as well as high school students. Now anyone can join Facebook and enter a geographical network.
After the whole feeds fiasco, the resulting user backlash from a new Facebook feature that allowed users to easily view exactly what their friends were doing online, Facebook has incorporated many privacy features to ensure the happiness of every user.
This doesn’t mean that anyone can see your profile, however. Your profile is just as closed off as it ever was. Our network structure is not going away. College and work networks still require an authenticated email address to join. Only people in your networks and confirmed friends can see your profile.
To ensure that spammers won’t penetrate the Facebook network, accounts must be validated either through a working email address or via text message on a mobile phone. So now that MySpace and Facebook are finally on a level playing field, who do you think will be more successful (far) down the line? (granted MySpace does have a huge headstart)
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“Facebook has incorporated many privacy features to ensure the happiness of every user.”
I think every user is a pretty serious overstatement considering the number of groups that were created to petition the coming Facebook Free For All. Facebook solicited opinions to “discuss” hesitancy about the coming changes, but it certainly felt to me, the user that the decision had already been made.
I think this is lousy. Sure the accounts have to be validated, but that doesn’t do anything to protect against “real” creepy people, or people starting up multiple accounts to perpetrate acts of harrasment. – sure you can report people, but that’s effectively bailing water out of a leaky boat. As the service gets bigger and the site grows it’s only going to get harder to police.
Just for the record, I didn’t think it was so wonderful when Facebook opened up to high schools and certain companies, I thought it was the beginning of the slipper slope we now find ourselves as users careening down.
As per your question: I always felt that Facebook was the superior networking site, having better design, higher reliability and that level of exclusivity. But now who knows? I guess the door is wide open for Facebook and MySpace to compete at having the most guys named “Chaz the Chimmney Sweep” who want me to add them as a friend.
… Lousy.
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For many of the reasons mentioned by Kachina, I think (hope?) Facebook will be the more successful network, but I too fear the onslaught of random users.
*sigh*
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Excellent news, I understand why people are worried but due to the nature of my degree, and my Uni’s opinion of new technology, I wasn’t able to join and missed out. Personally I like the idea of a social networking site that bans you from using your own CSS… Ugly MySpace!
Thanks for the heads up Paul.
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Yeah I agreed that it shouldn’t have been opened up to corporations and high schools. I wrote a post about people exposing their information in the first place on those sites, and now with companies on there, it’s even easier for them to filter out potential candidates. So, I don’t think opening up registration for everyone will help Facebook’s reputation. But that’s just me.
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I don’t like this idea. I was hoping they wouldn’t open it up. I don’t think it will be too bad, however, as I only use it to connect with the people on my friends list.
I don’t see why this is such a big deal. You can easily set the privacy settings so that people that are not in a network can’t find you. You also can just not add people as a friend. There is nothing that is forcing you to add that creepy person
I always thought Facebook was cool because it was *just* a college network. I don’t want them to play the “me-too” game and try to compete with MySpace; there’s a good chance they will only lose what made them unique.
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