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It’s, Like, What Your Friends Like »

Last week, I was blown away by the announcements from F8. The Open Graph and the new technologies that support it are incredible, and you can already see signs of Facebook integration on many popular websites.

While the fact that Facebook has over 450 million users seems like enough to prove its worth to brands, this new expansion is another sign of the social phenomenon’s impressive reach to consumers.

I think this is just the beginning of a whole new level of social interaction. Instant connections to sites like Yelp and Pandora are sure to lend a new element to the emerging share culture. All of this is very cool and exciting. And yet…

Isn’t it a little scary? I mean, you don’t even have to be logged in for CNN.com to know which of your Facebook friends have “liked” the article you’re reading. It just knows. Like some all-knowing HAL 9000 character.

Facebook’s privacy policy and use of its user information has been the topic of serious debate and criticism lately, and I think that this new development will add heat to the fire. Do people really want that information out there? Does the idea of the opt-in still exist?

The next few weeks will grant us a much better view of how these new changes will affect businesses and their online presence, and I’m looking forward to having a front row seat. Also, next week our own Richard Ha will be updating from the Web 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, and I am sure he will have more insight to share.

Tags: #F8, #w2e, Facebook, Facebook Like Plugin, HAL9000, Open Graph, Web 2.0 Expo

This entry was posted on Monday, April 26th, 2010 at 11:39 am and is filed under New Media, Social Media, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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