By Erica L. Fitzsimmons
A few more thoughts on the new Facebook changes, privacy concerns and what Four Square and Gowalla should be concerned about.
The recent Facebook platform changes may have advantages for advocacy professionals as I discussed in my earlier post, “Facebook Takeover,” but due to widespread privacy concerns, several Facebook members are thinking about quitting the wildly popular social networking site. And by several, I mean approximately 60% of them — according to a survey conducted by IT security firm, Sophos.
Facebook has taken a lot of criticism the over changes on how it can share user data across its site and with other websites. While people over share personal information in their Facebook status updates every day (Tip: Nobody cares that you just took a shower or that your dog has a runny nose), individuals are making that choice to share their life’s most intimate details. And while people choose to share their wedding photos and address information on Facebook, many are wary, and perhaps rightly so, that this information is going to start popping up all over the Internet. Maybe rather than quitting Facebook all together, the solution is not to over share personal information with your 746 closest friends.
Speaking of information popping up in different locations, a few thoughts on location based social media. Four Square and Gowalla are obviously making a real surge and gaining traction amongst advocacy professionals. Four Square is totally the new Twitter.
But here’s the elephant in the room – what happens when Facebook launches their own location based platform? Which they most certainly will. In an instant, 500 million people worldwide will have the option to check in and tell us exactly where they are at any given moment, without having to sign up for yet another network. Will this change knock new services like Four Square and Gowalla right off of, well, the map?
