I have been playing with Facebook (FB) for about two months now. I have developed mixed feelings about the so called networking service.
First I never trust anything free. There is always a reason for something like this to be given away. This holds for other networking services such as LinkedIn and all the rest of its kind. There is a definite reason behind this entire personal information gathering. Don’t lie to yourself and pretend there isn’t. The biggest tie-in is targeted marketing but there is no end where the data that is gathered can go or how it can be used.
I don’t say stay away. They do provide a service to the user. Of course they do. They would not be popular if they didn’t. It IS a good way to discover old friends. Just realize that EVERYTHING you post is open for inspection. Don’t be coddled into letting your guard down by the, “we respect your privacy” statements. That is pure BS. The reason the service is free is so they can use the information gathered. When you join any “extra” service (games, photo services, etc.) you sign away your rights to all the information and friends lists you have. Believe me; your personal information is not personal.
I have turned off almost all my personal information. Everything I can. I killed the “farming” time wasters. That is a blatant marketing scheme to get you to visit the supporting vendors and buy stuff so you can earn points to do what! Build a fake farm! Others so you can kill mafia, I assume. I played farming long enough to realize you can’t play the game very well in any reasonable length of time by just planting crops. Ha!
So right now I use FB as just a bulletin board. I’ll take a look several times a day and play along once and awhile. My spouse, kids and their friends enjoy it and I feel good that they do. I hope they just heed what I have said above about shared personal and private information.
My blogs and websites are the same sort of sharing. I am not a privacy freak. I just don’t share all my friends’ lists and deep personal information (age, schools, number and types of employment) with the world of sales and marketing. I don’t leave an obvious bread trail of all places I have visited and the things I like because of a FB marketing scheme.
I run my internet programs at the server level and you would be amazed at some of the information I can gather about folks that just visit my pages. Just think of yourself on FB wearing only your underwear walking through a crowded mall. Everyone can see every detail about how you look. You will feel very embarrassed and want to run and hide, or else you are enjoying all the attention you are getting. 🙂