I Love The Web

Facebook has been making bad press lately because of the apparent disdain for users’s privacy. Much has been discussed about this and it has led to  this response on the Washington Post  by founder Mark Zuckerburg ; a non-apology by some reputable critics ( Kit Eaton, Molly Wood ). The crux of the complaints stem from the practice by Facebook where users are opted into privacy settings make their data public by default. A more acceptable policy is to keep this data private by default and let users decide when they make that information public.

With more than 400 million active users  and second to only Google Facebook is clearly THE water well of the internet making them a very dominant arena on the internet.

Social media evangelists have spoken and the world has finally stood up to pay attention. In a race to cement their platform as the de facto standard for social media, Facebook has made available tools such as FacebookConnect as well as Facebook LIKE button. These tools make it possible for many websites to tap into that Facebook water well and get closer to those 800 million idle eyes. Business has paid attention.

This brings me to my question. As business taps into social media platforms controlled by other business entities, what is that point that will make business turn around and run for hills to look for other social media water wells (QQ, Baidu, Orkut, Hi5) ?

Does this signal the forming of other social media networks that are accountable to the users ? Who is going to pay for them ? Perhaps a model such as the one we see formed by other commercial conglomerates such as this one.

Is this the scarecrow that finally forces us to turn the chapter and move on to the next Fad?